Priam
by Laryna6
Summary: Memory particles, memories: ripping them out of someone's mind has consequences. The Light of the Sacred Flame was put out, leaving only dead ashes that remember life and would do anything to have it back. Even share that place in the sun.
1. Chapter 1

_This is the first chapter of one of those ToA fics that has been in my documents folder for years. Yes, I knew I said I wouldn't post any more ToA fics until I got some of my other incomplete fics done, but I do think that the beginning of this one works well enough as a 'what if' without me having to start posting the chapters that retell the game's plot. Hopefully, like Koheleth and unlike Garden, I won't start posting material for the larger plot before I've got it done despite this vow…_

_Given the whole thing about memory particles and how seventh fonons are related to people's minds? Especially since replica!Luke and Lorelei's seventh fonons _are _their minds, and Asch is something of a hybrid, that incorporates the other fonons but is akin enough to use a fonon sentience's power? This 'verse explores the mental effects of this more. There are ten chapters written: sadly, the plot gets kicked off next chapter, so I can't post more until it's done. _

_I can't post this as part of All For The Want since it's a pregame fic, not a bad ending._

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><p>Luke felt empty. Horribly, horribly empty.<p>

"I wish the Commandant wasn't in such a hurry," Dist whined, and normally Luke would have snarled back, but not while he felt like this. "He's so much more tractable between extraction and the next failure. We need to wait a day between each extraction, but I do wish we could extract the data again right after the failure and keep him like this."

"He won't eat or take care of himself like this, and Van wants him alive." Sync was bored and irritated with how long this was taking. "So hurry up and make one that works!"

"This would be so much easier if you would just kidnap Jade for me."

"The emperor's friend? Dream on." Cantabile leaned back in her chair, disguising he weakness with the ease of long practice.. "We know all about your real project, and we'll help you get him when things are further along. If you want Nebilim back, then hurry up and keep your end of the bargain!"

"I'm trying, but this data simply refuses to cooperate."

Data. Calling what they'd taken from him just data? Everything seemed gray, his memories of his home and family washed out, like a painting that had muddy water poured over it. Calling this a replica, a copy? They had torn his heart out and were trying to keep him from getting it back. Without anything to care about, they thought he'd serve the one who did this to him?

He might. It was all gray, and it was hard to remember why he hated Van, even. Hard to hold on to hate and anger, or any emotion. Why wouldn't Dist hurry up!

"Well, here goes." Dist didn't think this would work either.

Finally!

He could feel the seventh fonons pour out of the machine, others swirling around them, and after so long it had become a reflex more vital than breathing to use his own fonons to reach out, touch, and feel his missing piece, his soul, pour back into him. See the world flash into color, passion and anger and love for his family and relief and success that he'd prevented them from doing this to him again. Perhaps even joy, or as close as he'd come to it for so very long now.

"Son of a…" Cantabile. "He's doing it on purpose!" In a flash, the god-general had him by the throat.

"What do you mean?" Dist floated over in that chair that so needed smashing.

"I may not have a real fon master's powers, but I was watching his face this time and I felt him just reach out and grab all the fonons! Damn it! It's your fault this is taking so long!" Cantabile shook him. Not yet! She wouldn't die until this worked, miasma take it!

Luke grinned. On the one hand, he'd been caught and they'd know what they had to prevent now. On the other, there was so much satisfaction in seeing their faces as they realized their helpless victim had been sabotaging them all along. Now that he was complete he had the energy to spit on Sync's mask.

"What a naughty boy." Although Dist sounded somewhat impressed. Not that he wanted Dist's admiration. "Let's try knocking him out until the replica stabilizes tomorrow, hmm? And if that doesn't work, a fon slot seal should."

"No, the first few times he was unconscious after the extraction. I'll go requisition a seal right now, and report to Van." Cantabile hurried. Not much time left, and she wanted to die knowing that there was hope, that a new world could be made, that everything that happened to her and Hod had _meant _something. Damn that boy!

Damn it! With his fon slots sealed, he wouldn't be able to reach out. They'd returned to him in his sleep before, yes, but if they couldn't get into his body, then, then…

Then the world would stay grey, and all he'd have to cling to would be the embers of his anger, the remains of his love for his family and Natalia… "No!" He tried to go after Sync, but the chains stopped him short. "No!"

His protests, his begging, pleading, crying, hadn't stopped them before, and he knew when he woke up and the world had gone grey and colorless, neither his fonons nor the world's in his sealed sight, that Van had won. The man's self-satisfied expression was redundant. "You put up quite a fight."

"You would too, if someone kept ripping your heart out of your chest." So hard, to muster up even that show of anger.

"I saved your life. The replica will die in your place at Akzeriuth. Until then, your family and Natalia will have no idea that you're gone. You can stay here and train to fight the score until your death sentence is lifted and you can return, if you want to return to the people that deliberately sent what they thought was you to its death."

"You think I'd stay with you, after what you've done to me?" He could only glare. "You're insane."

"I did it for your sake, Luke. Your father and uncle made no effort to prevent your death, in fact they knowingly engaged Natalia to you so that when you died and they claimed Malkuth had done it she would mourn you and help rally the people. Your mother and Natalia were the only ones who cared for you, and they've been utterly taken in by that replica. They won't suspect a thing until it's all over, and if you return home before news reaches them about Akzeriuth then they won't have to mourn you."

"Liar." Although what part of it wasn't true?

"Since you're so worried, I'll let you go home and see for yourself that they're happy with your substitute and you aren't needed." Van's show of caring about Asch's love for his family was only a show, Asch could see that with the love he had once had for his teacher stripped away like everything else good in the world. That was why it was so hard to be angry. Without understanding what he'd lost it was hard to be angry at losing it. Without feeling the bond he'd thought he and Van had shared it was hard to feel betrayed.

He had to get home, he needed to _feel_, or else he'd cling to anything that created any emotion in all this gray, even his worst enemy, even the one who had done this to him.

Perhaps it was that grayness that let him realize what he would do to escape it. That made him realize the control that Van could claim over him. That made him able to see the person who had been far more a father to him than the one who had raised him to be sacrificed as nothing but enemy, target, something in the way.

Van had to die. And empty as he was, murderous rage, the sadness at the thought of losing him, the love turned to betrayal and hate? They were _better than nothing_. He'd been trapped for so long, almost helpless, he needed to fight back.

When Van unshackled him after Luke nodded his assent, he sprang at him.

He knew it wouldn't work, of course. He was unarmed, he'd lost almost all of his muscle, the gray had crept into his limbs as well as his mind, and he was under a fon slot seal.

But at least being slammed to the ground, at least the pain was _something_.

Van had clearly expected Luke's attack. When he bent over to help him up and give him another of those lying speeches he clearly didn't expect Luke to go for that neck with hands and teeth. He was knocked away again, but he'd made the bastard bleed, even if only a drop and it was quickly healed.

Vicious satisfaction was another emotion. He let himself smile at it, at feeling the gray drowned out by red, if only for a few precious instants. "I'm going to kill you, you bastard. I'm going to tear you apart." No exclamation now because he saw no need to waste the energy. Everything was focused on Van's body, memories of training and vulnerable points rushing back, everything focused on the taste of that blood and the hunger for it.

Van seemed thrown off balance: something he hadn't expected? How wonderful, and Luke found himself laughing. It had been so long since he'd laughed! He circled Van, searching hungrily for openings and thrilling at the look on his face. "You think I'm insane? Well, isn't that the pot calling the kettle black." He laughed again, because it felt so good and hearing it made Van flinch more than the wound had. "Didn't predict this, did you? You _are_ Yulia's descendant, aren't you. So self-righteous, plotting out everyone's future to suit your own vision of how things should be no matter how many people suffer and die? I bet she'd be proud of you, Van. So," and he saw the cracks appear, "very," and Van was angry now, truly angry, oh yes, "proud."

The sword running through his side, oh. It was insane to enjoy it, but it was a feeling, one born from hurting the one that did this to him, and with his memories faded away he couldn't think of anything that had ever felt better.

He came to and stayed that way outside Baticul, and the fon slot seal seemed to have worn off a bit. He wondered how long it had taken them to get him here, since he had scattered memories of doing his best to kill anyone within sight or get them in sight if he was in a locked cell every time he'd woken up. He'd heard of berserkers, of course, but the idea made beautiful sense now.

His head was still fuzzy: they'd drugged him. It added to the gray, but at least being able to sense fonons again, if only dimly, made it bearable. Well, he was here. He could go home, take back what was his, and tell them what Van had done. What he was trying to do. Trying to overturn the score? The whole world would hunt him down for it.

Oh yes…

But he wanted him dead _now_, and he would have gone looking if something hadn't… If he hadn't_ felt_ something.

He went home.

They'd cleaned him up and put him in suitable clothing, so he was able to get to the upper levels with the assistance of the air of 'stay out of my way or I'll have you executed, peons' that he wore like a cloak. He had a mission, he had the right to go where he was, and everything between him and it was dust beneath his feet.

Maybe he should have felt relief that he was home now, and safe, but even the sight of his home didn't really matter except that he was getting closer. He went right though the front door, the guards too startled to challenge him as he walked right past them.

There.

His family, his best friend, even Natalia: they were just background, faded by the gray.

What he saw, the first thing in living color he'd seen since being thrown into the gray walls of that dungeon, the only thing that moved him since the final loss but Van's blood, was himself.

Not himself. His heart. Happy, loving the ones Luke had once loved, laughing. Carefree and bright. Luke's skin had paled and his hair had darkened after spending so long without sunlight, so long in the cold. The replica, although that was not what he was at all, his eyes sparkled, his skin had started to tan just a bit, his hair was golden at the tips, like Rem the sun itself come down to Auldrant.

And he smiled at Luke.

It was like waking up from a nightmare, and he clung to him the way he'd clung to his mother after nightmares what seemed like so long ago. He clung tight enough his heart made a small sound of unhappiness at the pain, but his heart wouldn't go back into his chest the way it had before. He would have cried at the rejection, he might even have started to, but his heart looked at him, so warm and concerned and caring and then he cried. Relief, joy, they overflowed as color flowed back into the world, as the night of his despair ended, as light dawned.

So bright, so precious… "No," he answered a question, one of the ones that had dimly registered. "He's the real Luke. The true Light of the Sacred Flame." They must have gotten through to this pure, innocent, infant that Luke was his name, since he grinned with delight to hear the one who clutched him like something so precious say it.

But who was he then, the once-Luke wondered. His heart had been pulled out of his chest, his light taken away. Nothing but ashes left, but he felt like he'd been brought back to life, rekindled, now that he held his heart. What was ancient Ispanian for hearth, the bed of ashes that held the sacred flame? Why bother with anything fancy? "Asch."

He wanted to just sit here and hold him, but Luke wanted to play and didn't like that the other nice people were being left out and feeling unhappy, especially since trying to leave them out of the game was also making Asch unhappy. He could feel Luke's unhappiness, and that dimming of the light was unbearable. So, fortified by the smiling warmth that leaned against his chest, he was able to look away from it and face the world he was once again part of.

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><p><em>The general premise of this thing has been done, but I like examining the slight differences, the deviations from the Score and from general clichés and tropes and such. Go read <em>Reflections _by Dark Angel Mya, if you haven't already, if you find yourself craving more of a 'verse like this. It's one of the best fics for this game there is, along with _Nezach.

_Apparently there's something in the manga or whatever that gave Cantabile some characterization. I have not gotten my hands on this thing. I needed a god-general that wasn't Van or Dist, and all the others were ruled out by age or when they actually joined the Order. I considered using Legretta, but trying to figure out what she would have been like in this situation (if this is even after her brother died at all) was difficult, so I basically wrote something vaguely like game!Legretta and stuck Cantabile's name on her. _


	2. Chapter 2

_I don't know why both this verse and Lealverse have the Tear first contact play out so similarly. It's just so cliché for an AU to start out that painfully similar to the source material. Well, the attack on the Tartarus is where those two, and Lunaverse as well, begin to seriously diverge from the game's timeline._

_The uploader ate my A/Ns. To cover the high points: I was going to name Asch Priam, but thought better of it over the years this has sat in my documents folder. Yes, it is bad of me to post another incomplete fic at this time. Updates will be every other week instead of weekly. Asch/Natalia, possible Ion/Anise. Playing around with what the game's physics could mean._

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><p>"Book!" Luke held it up proudly.<p>

"What kind of book?" Asch coached him.

"Arte book!"

"And what kind of book did I ask you to get?"

"Storybook." Luke looked a little abashed, his naughtiness detected.

Guy laughed out loud, Natalia giggling in the background. "I can't believe it! What kind of one year old wants to study instead of being read a bedtime story!"

"Stories are fun, but stories with Asch and Natalia and Guy are funner." Was that wrong?

"More fun," Natalia corrected him. That part was wrong. The rest was adorable. "When we're teaching you an arte, then we all join in, but if we're just reading a story, or even if you're reading it to us, then only one person is doing anything, right?"

Luke nodded. "Only one person gets to play."

"A play!" Natalia clapped her hands. "That's it! We could all read lines from it." Luke, while an adorable bundle of energy, did need sleep, and lots of it. His body wasn't growing any faster than Asch's, but his mind was soaking up everything like a sponge. According to Dr. Balfour, who had been volunteered as Luke's doctor by Emperor Peony, he should still be working on basic vocabulary and fine motor coordination at this point, since he hadn't been pre-programmed with that knowledge. He shouldn't be up to reading, let alone learning artes.

The theory was that it had to do with his proximity to Asch, since there was a large amount of interaction between their seventh fonons. Since Luke was entirely composed of seventh fonons, which contained memory particles, it often only took him a single study session to learn something Asch already knew if Asch helped him learn it: the intent to help him learn seemed to affect their fonons. If Asch didn't know it, Luke had to work as hard at it as anyone his mental age would normally.

Luke knew the modern tongue, and how to read, and fighting techniques, and more fighting techniques, and everything Asch could find time for. He didn't have the experience necessary to use them correctly. That tended to show in the blunders normal small children made: going what was grammatical (funner) and making mistakes with irregulars, rushing around and knocking into things, not grasping that he needed to go to bed on time when he'd rather stay up with everyone else… Because his brain was on the level of an infant's, he required an infant's amount of sleep to develop properly. Luke needed _fourteen hours_ of sleep, eleven at night and three in naps during the day. His body thought that it needed nine, the amount Asch needed since he actually was the age he appeared.

Hence why Guy's main job nowadays was to train him until he was exhausted, train him hard enough to compensate for the fact that Luke had five fewer hours awake to get exhausted_ in_ than he should have. Luke might know fighting techniques, but he didn't have the muscle memory or actual training time.

It was an uphill battle, often literally. At this rate Luke would be better than Asch by the time he was four. He was already stronger, since lifting weights was tiring, which was why it was constantly getting harder for Guy to tire him out safely. Over the next three years the amount of sleep he needed would go down to ten hours, but that couldn't come soon enough. Especially for Luke, who missed out on a third of the day.

The morning nap was the hardest. Luke had trained, they'd eaten breakfast, and now they were trying to get him to lie still long enough to fall asleep. Tying him down had just stimulated an interest in escapology: he'd spend the entire nap period giggling and trying to get loose. Asch, who had his own memories of capture, had thought this was a great idea and their tutor had brought them books describing what to do if captured.

There had been an attempt three months after Asch came home. Maybe Van had thought that if he captured him he could convince him to retract his story of the kidnapping or change his mind and join him. What a fool. He'd been forced to retreat before he got even close by Dr. Balfour and their Oracle Knight bodyguards.

Asch hadn't told anyone what Van had told him about the Score's less flattering parts. Scion of Lorelei, light of the sacred flame… human sacrifice for Kimlasca's glory with a funeral pyre of ten thousand innocent people. If it wasn't true, why worry everyone, and if it was, keeping the people who were planning his death in the dark was a good thing.

The fact that there had been such a panicked response to his story was strong evidence for it, though. The king, the Order… The tertiary heir to the throne and future king at risk, an Order member of Van's rank doing something like that to him… the Order should have tried to cover it up and deny Van's involvement. Oh, officially it had, but the fact that they were watching over him this closely showed that a threat to him was a threat to the score.

The king's reaction should have been ordering them to act like everything was normal, business as usual, Kimlasca a strong nation that laughed off such a failed attack, not tried to confine him and Luke to the manor. That was a cowardly action.

Not to mention what an uphill battle it had been to get his hands on Dr. Balfour. He'd had to have Natalia smuggle out the letters. Dist had said so much about the genius Jade: Asch wanted Luke to have his help.

If Asch's destiny was to be a weapon against Malkuth, then the last thing they would want was him getting friendly with a Malkuthian officer and personal friend of the emperor. However, if without Dr. Balfour's help it was that likely that Asch would die and they'd lose their weapon…

The Big Bang Effect was quite likely why Luke was alive, if the Akzeriuth story was true. He was their backup, if Asch were killed before the important date. Or if he were killed on the important date, even better.

Luke wouldn't mind, that was the horrible thing about it, and why Asch resented that he had so much to do and couldn't focus on getting stronger the way he could make sure Luke was. He… if the effect occurred, he'd be complete. His heart would be back in his chest, or his heart's chest would become his own, but he liked it this way. He liked Luke, he liked all the reminders Luke gave him of why life, Score and all, was worth living.

As Natalia tucked Luke into bed and Guy flung himself casually out their window in search of a copy of the play about the first cheagle that the three of them could act out for him, Asch smiled at the sight and planned how to preserve it. He'd have to tell them eventually, but not yet. Natalia would be horrified, and she was too honest to keep something like that a secret. She'd mope and it would get dragged out of her, and then she'd feel terrible for betraying them.

Well, there wasn't any point on dwelling on it. Six years to go: if he thought about it too much he'd go mad again. At least there were plenty of things to do in the meantime.

Hopefully including figuring out why Luke kept having these headaches. Arcs of light like that were not normal, even if only Asch and Luke could see them. It might have something to do with the power of hyperresonance. Or maybe something had gone wrong with Luke's creation. "Shh, it's going to be okay, it'll be over soon…"

Everything had been removed from Choral Castle before his father had gotten there, and Dr. Balfour had made substantial threats on a certain visit to Belkend (the only time they'd been out of the city since the kidnapping) to use the equipment there, but no one knew where Van and the data disc they needed had disappeared to.

* * *

><p>Tear Grants had idolized her big brother. Then, when she was nine, there had been a conference in Yulia City and everything changed. Her grandfather had tried to shelter her, but he'd had to explain why Van was no longer welcome and that if Tear saw him she needed to let someone so that he could be killed.<p>

The explanation hadn't satisfied her. She'd joined the Oracle Knights to find out the truth, and, if necessary, kill him herself.

The Special Operations Division commander of the God-Generals found out a lot of things.

Hod, for one. She'd been told to make sure that she wouldn't leak anything to Van: after all, he'd destroyed their home.

Replicas, for another.

She also had the resources to do a lot of digging. The heir of house Gardios, who called himself Guy Cecil now, was a servant in the Fabre manor, bodyguard and manservant to the Light of the Sacred Flame and the replica her brother had created after kidnapping him. Guy must have helped her brother arrange the kidnapping. He had to know what her brother was up to. Someone like that couldn't be allowed to control the Scion of Lorelei's Power and help her brother's insane desire to destroy the Score itself.

Grand Maestro Mohs himself had given her permission to bring him in for questioning. And keep him in.

She didn't want there to be any possible warning. She showed up unannounced, on the morning she arrived in Baticul from Yulia City. After brazenly using her rank to clear her path to the courtyard, she found her target.

"Guy Cecil?"

He positioned his sword to signal a break in the training match she'd interrupted before turning and recognizing her rank. "Yes, God-General?"

"By order of Grand Maestro Mohs, you, Gailardia Galan Gardios, are under arrest for conspiracy to kidnap Luke fon Fabre with Vandesdelca Musto Fende. Put down your sword." Daggers out, she clearly hoped he would give her an excuse.

Shocked, he dropped the wooden sword. It wasn't the reaction she'd expected. He looked like he'd seen a ghost from his past: not the attitude of a criminal who had just been caught.

"Wait, what's going on?" The redhead, clearly the replica Luke, looked back and forth between them. "Guy, what's she talking about?"

Tear remained silent: she wanted to hear this.

"Luke, I knew Van when we were kids, remember? I guessed that he'd taken Asch, but I had no idea you weren't him until he showed up. I didn't want to tell either of you about that, at first, but I told Asch everything that mattered a couple of years ago, although he toned it down a bit for you." Gailardia hadn't taken his eyes off Tear, and his hands were up: prudent. "I haven't seen Van since he brought Luke here."

Tear had moved, circling, until Luke was in her line of sight and she didn't have to glance away from the target to watch his reactions. Relief. If Asch knew and trusted Guy then of course everything was fine. Of course, Asch had been young, and possibly vulnerable to a childhood friend who was a good enough actor to remain undercover in the house of the man who had slaughtered his family.

"Then you'll be happy to come with me to Daath to tell your story to Grand Maestro Mohs."

"To Daath?" The replica looked like the seven-year-old he was at that revelation. "But…"

He walked toward her, utterly unthreatening, and those wide eyes and long fluffy hair… so cute…

It wasn't until she sensed a hyperresonance forming, the combination of her battle readiness and his focus on her that she remembered whose replica he was. They hadn't thought the replica had the same powers as the Scion! If he was untrained, then no wonder this was happening!


	3. Chapter 3

She came to when cold water was splashed on her face. Rubbing her eyes, she sat up to see the replica Luke leaning over her, worried. "Are you okay? That was hyperresonance, wasn't it?"

"Yes." That was her reply to both questions.

"I didn't know you could go places with it. Do you know where we are?"

Selenias. "Tataroo Valley. I'm sorry, Viscount fon Fabre. Please accept my apologies. I swear I will return you home as soon as possible."

"Call me Luke, everyone does. And it's my fault, really. I was using a fonic hymn when you came and I didn't cancel it. That was just begging for a hyperresonance to happen. Oh, what's your name?"

"You're oddly cheerful for someone who just got dragged into the middle of nowhere." He'd never left Baticul, he should be off-balance or maybe even frightened by the monster-filled wilderness at night, not excited. "I'm Tear Grants." She held out her hand.

That open, innocent look was locked away the instant she told him her last name. "Grants?"

"He's my brother. But I'm not working with him, even if it sort of… looks like it." Kidnapping him from Baticul, the way Van had his original? How incriminating could she get? The Order… she had to get him back, safe and soon, or they'd… they already had to be sure that she was a traitor.

"Phew. Okay. So, what way do we go?" The suspicion was gone and he was scanning the ground. "Good thing we were training in full gear, even if we only had wooden swords… Ah ha!" A stick? "I put down my sword before we wound up here, and a wooden sword's just a sturdy stick anyway. This way I'll look like a normal traveler, until I can get a sword."

"Good thinking."

"I'm in training gear, not house garb…" He opened the item bag he'd been carrying. Fighting in full gear meant carrying weight, the way a soldier ambushed en route to a battlefield would be. An item bag like his had an amazing carrying capacity and took up no more space than an empty bag: normally ones that high quality were also weightless but judging by how he held it this one wasn't. A normal traveler couldn't have afforded a weightless one, so that worked. "Can you get rid of your insignia?"

Really good thinking. "Do you read a lot of adventure stories?" Now that she thought about it, he'd have to do something, cooped up like that.

"No, not really. Since Asch got kidnapped he made me learn what to do if I got kidnapped. Only right now I'm trying to _not_ get kidnapped. People can detect hyperresonances, you know. It's a good thing I keep my art supplies in here."

"You fight carrying an item bag holding art supplies?"

"Sure, that way I have them if we go do that next. They're in a sturdy box, see?" They were. "I train a lot, so I decided to just keep everything in here instead of just filling it with pointless weights."

"What else do you have in there?"

"Um… lunch, although it's only rice balls, my journal, writing supplies in the art kit, my normal clothes, gels, bottles, some training stuff, shampoo, soap, shaving kit, comb and hairbrush, knife, firestarting kit, waterproof blanket, rope, the books I'm studying…" Seeing her expression, he shrugged. "I have to wash up and change back to normal clothes after practice, we go picnicking on the cannons a lot, and we spend the night at the castle on short notice pretty often. Also, we keep upping the weight so I have to find stuff to put in it, although Asch, Natalia, and Guy all have me keep the presents they're planning to give people in here since no one can find anything in it but me and they don't know the others are. Natalia recruited me to help search Asch's room last month and it was pretty hard to not laugh."

"I imagine." He was making her preparedness look inadequate. She was getting more emergency supplies when they reached a town, she vowed. "So, are you going to dye your hair?"

He nodded. "Red hair is a sign of noble blood. It's pretty rare outside of the royal family. Between that and the green eyes it's kind of a giveaway. Luckily brown's a pretty easy color to mix, so I shouldn't run out that soon. We could pretend to be fraternal twins, since we look about the same age. Is that a good idea?"

"That's a great idea." Underneath his excitement at getting to try this out for real, Tear was relieved to find a hint of worry. He didn't think he knew best, and he wasn't going to look at this as one big adventure. Thank goodness. He might know the theory of how to resist capture better than her, perhaps, but she was the one with actual experience.

She did the best she could to disguise her outfit, and topped it off by borrowing the blanket and the rope to serve as a cloak. Luke's training gear was high-quality, enough to pass for a normal person's real travel and combat gear.

He had a bit of a tendency to hesitate in battle, she noticed. In a seventeen-year-old it would have been foolish. Knowing his real age, it was inevitable, and the determination to do his share of the work even though he winced every time he had to kill a monster, even ones that had been lunging for his throat, was, was kind of cute.

Who was she kidding, he was adorable. Hearing him call her big sister in front of the coachman (Luke apparently had his life savings in the bag too, although the amount was pretty pitiful for a noble), made her blush and that might have broken their cover, although the coachman was well able to see that there was no way someone like Luke would be a bandit. She might be only sixteen, but she was a soldier, and soldiers did not squee! What would God-General Locrian Major Legretta think?

It was after they passed Rotelro Bridge that she realized she'd let herself get distracted. A Malkuth landship? She'd taken a heir of Kimlasca into Malkuth!

"The Tartarus?" Luke seemed to recognize it. "Really? Our uncle is stationed on it! Where is it based?"

"Either Engave or St. Binah. Engave is our next stop."

"Great!"

No, not great! When they stopped for lunch (rice balls), she took him aside. "I'm sorry, I thought the coach was heading for the capital of Kimlasca, not Grand Chokmah."

"…you did?"

"Well, I'm not really familiar with… wait a second, you knew all along?"

"Of course I did. I'm not an idiot." He looked vaguely affronted, then backpedaled, "I mean, not that you're an idiot… uh, sorry."

"No, you're right, I shouldn't have messed up like this. I normally do stuff like write letters and read through records and so on, but that's no excuse." Yulia City's ignorance of the outside world was such a handicap. She should have been better prepared, but you wouldn't need waterproof blankets in Yulia City. "Well, anyway, what should we tell him to avoid heading to Engave?"

"Why wouldn't we want to go to Engave?"

"To avoid that landship? You could be spotted! Wasn't that why you asked about it?"

"Oh, no. I _do_ know someone who works on that landship. He's not my uncle, but I call him that because he's fun to tease. He teases back," Luke explained.

'How do you know a soldier from Malkuth?' she was about to ask, and then realized that they must have met at some diplomatic function. "Is he trustworthy?"

"Yes," of course. Luke explained that, "I've known him since before I was old enough to have clear memories. He's Emperor Peony's right hand man and he's helping with the replica stuff."

"Wait, Dr. Balfour?" She'd been corresponding with him since he was involved in the investigation.

Luke nodded.

Tear sighed with relief. What a lucky break.

The Tartarus hadn't returned yet when they arrived in Engave. Tear's instinct was to go to the inn and stay there. The fewer people that saw them the better. But the food had run out, Luke's inexperience had showed when he picked out supplies and turned to go without paying for them since his family had a tab at the grocery and he'd never paid personally for food in his life, and they ended up dragged before the village headwoman later, since the storehouse had been robbed. Way to not attract attention!

Luckily, Dr. Balfour, aka Col. Jade Curtiss, was there, and Fon Master Ion showed up with cheagle fur.

Luke's final apology to Rose, the headwoman, was, "I'm really sorry, but how was I supposed to know it worked that way? My family pays for everything."

It seemed a little out of character, and glancing at Dr. Balfour Tear saw him eyeing Luke oddly before the expression was replaced. "Tch tch. What a childish excuse. What are you, seven?"

Luke put his hands on his hips. "You should get another pair of glasses if I look seven to you, old man. Maybe bifocals this time?"

His expression was intrigue with a hint of delight. "You brat! What are you doing out of the playpen?" Brat was an odd choice of pet name. "Did you finally run away from home?"

"My sister, you know, the oracle knight," Luke waved at Tear, "came by to visit and we ended up going to Tataroo Valley to look at the selenias. I heard that Jade was in Engave, and I thought the rappig had escaped again. Too bad it's you, Tear likes cute stuff and you are _so _uncute."

"Colonel, you know this guy?" The black-haired kid spoke up.

"To my everlasting regret, yes. Anise, meet Guinea Rappig and a woman with horrible, horrible luck when it comes to brothers. I truly pity you," he informed Tear, letting her know he knew who she was in an incredibly tactless way. She would have thought he was a horrible, sadistic person if it weren't for the fact Luke wouldn't get along so well with someone who said things like that to hurt people. She'd also been warned by his correspondence and reports that he had… a certain sense of humor. "Luke and Tear, meet God-General Anise the Puppeteer, Fon Master Guardian, and Ion, her ball and chain."

"It's very nice to meet you." Working mainly in Yulia City, Tear had never personally met the Fon Master. He radiated a purity and holiness that was utterly appropriate to his calling, as apt as Luke's would be if he were Lorelei's Scion. His compassionate gaze seemed to see into her heart and bless it.

It took a moment for Tear to realize that he knew who she was. She felt honored and embarrassed: she hadn't recognized him, after all.

"Shall we head to the Inn?" Jade asked. "Luke's mommy would be terribly disappointed in me if I let her baby stay up past his bedtime."

"And you need all the beauty sleep you can get," Luke countered as they headed out the door.

Anise giggled. "I like you! If only you were rich…" She spread her arms helplessly. "Make a few million gald and look me up in six years, okay?"

"Robbing the cradle, are we?"

"Hey, she started it." Luke pointed at Anise.

Blinking theatrically, Jade responded, "Excuse me, was I talking to you?"

Since the two groups took up the Inn's only two rooms, Jade told the Innkeeper to stay out of the area for the night as soon as they arrived. Once he was gone and the doors closed, the act was dropped. "So, you and God-General Grants were the cause of the hyperresonance we detected?"

"Grants!" Anise exclaimed.

"No, Anise, this is his sister Tear," Ion explained. "She was just appointed Special Operations God-General." There were nine god-generals: their leader, who had once been Van; the leaders of the six regular units; the Special Operations unit leader; and the Fon Master Guardian unit leader. Tear hadn't even heard that a Fon Master Guardian God-General had been appointed: the position had been vacant since Arietta the Wild was transferred to command of a unit.

"His sister?" Anise looked suspicious.

"I joined to help bring him to justice."

"Still, it's incredibly convenient that it happened now. And I use the word incredible literally." After frowning, Jade's tone lightened. "So, Luke, what did you do this time?"

Tear expected Luke to object to the implication that it was always his fault, but apparently it always was. "Tear came to arrest Guy. She said he was actually..."

"Count Gardios, I know. Go on." Jade had known?

"She was ready to attack and she showed up during practice. I went to talk to her and I forgot to cancel the arte I was using first. We ended up in Tataroo Valley. I didn't know hyperresonance could do that."

"Luke, you're going to make someone grow another head someday if you keep doing that." Jade reconsidered. "In fact, please do." Reconsidering again: "Well, no, it's not like anyone uses the heads they already have, so it would do no good. Never mind then."

"We were on the coach that crossed Rotelro Bridge right before the Dark Wings blew it up, the coachman said it was the Tartarus and it was based here or St. Binah, and so here we are."

"Well done. Except for nearly being thrown in jail, at least." Luke looked abashed. "Oh, don't worry, you've gotten your huge mistake for the week over with. If you'd done something like this correctly I'd think the world was coming to an end."

"Yeah, and if you were considerate of my youth I'd think the same thing."

Ignoring that pitiful excuse for a comeback, Jade turned to Tear. "Who sent you to arrest Guy?"

"Grand Maestro Mohs showed me the information."

"As I suspected." Jade nodded. "Well then, everyone rest up. We're headed for the Cheagle Woods tomorrow. Those scamps made off with the supplies we need for the trip to Baticul, and I'm not going to let you wander around unsupervised."

"You're headed for Baticul?"

"Yes, in point of fact we are. What an incredible coincidence, don't you think, Tear?" Jade seemed vastly amused by something, and Tear was glad whatever it was distracted him from her. She'd read what he wrote about people who screwed up like she had. Luke wasn't the only one who should have known better.

"We're going to deliver a message of peace," Anise informed them, pouting because she was being left out of the conversation.

"There have been a lot of border incidents, and everyone is very worried," Ion chimed in.

Luke's face was serious now. He was a noble and he'd never killed a human being, of course the risk of war was something he should take seriously. But take it that personally? "You know a date's been set for Asch and Natalia's wedding."

"I know, we got the invitation." Jade nodded. "They're still a bit young, but if they were going to get sick of each other they would have done it by now. I know _I_ did within half a minute. We're planning to stay in Baticul until Emperor Peony arrives to attend the ceremony."

"The honeymoon will be in Choral Castle, they're fixing it up right now."

"I've been informed. I think it's rather poor taste, myself."

"Poor taste? A castle?" Anise was really confused now.

"Luke's brother was imprisoned there when he was kidnapped by former God-General Van Grants."

"Wait, Luke's brother?" Anise stared. "You're the… I mean, Viscount Luke fon Fabre? I thought you had red hair!"

"I dyed it."

"Obviously he can't go wandering around with hair like that. Honestly, Anise. If you were disguising Ion the first thing you'd do would be to alter that hair of his." Turning back to Luke, he asked, "Are you invited? Any excuse to get out of Baticul. It might be defensible, but the miners who fixed up that crater viewed comfort as an after-afterthought." Had there been a slight emphasis on the world 'miners?'

Luke nodded. "There's an ancient tower on an island to the south of there that I'd like to see."

"I wouldn't. Cold, dreary, and deserted. You're always welcome in Keterberg and Grand Chokmah. Nephry and Peony have _such _poor taste, don't they?" Spreading his hands in a trademark theatrical gesture, he added, "Just look at me."

"Oh, come off it." Luke rolled his eyes. "Don't make her come down here and hit you with a ruler."

"Perish the thought."

No, Anise had no idea what they were talking about either.

"Well, time for bed. We all need our beauty sleep. Except you, Ion." Ion blushed. He really did look like a very pretty… girl. "Men in one room, girls in another?" Looking at Ion, he indicated that Ion would be bunking with Anise, his guardian, and Tear, also an Oracle Knight and therefore his guardian by vocation. They all nodded. "Good. See you in the morning." Jade went into one room, Luke followed him.

Only, before Luke got there, Jade closed the door and they heard the lock click.

"Figures," was Luke's response.


	4. Chapter 4

From Tear's perspective the trip to Cheagle Woods went amazingly well. The cheagle was so cute! She wished she was his master, but Luke was the one who had saved his life. She would have asked if he could ride on her shoulder instead of in Luke's item bag, but having to smash the liger eggs had made the innocent Luke depressed and the cheagle was the best suited to cheering him up since Jade's attempts to make him see how foolish it was to mourn them hadn't worked. Luke had known it had been necessary before they fought the Queen, and he still felt bad about it.

Sad Luke with a cute fluffy cheagle peeking out from his pack over his shoulder and trying to cheer him up was just adorable. She wanted to hug him and squeeze him and…

"Ah, the mothering instinct in action." Jade. "The desire to coddle all things weak and brainless. A powerful force and the only reason all of us weren't drowned at birth."

Tear blushed, Anise glared daggers at him. Jade was unabashed: why did they bother? "Both of you do realize who you're looking at, correct?"

"Just because he's a replica doesn't…" Anise had been trying to curry favor with Luke since discovering his rank and money, but this sounded like something closer to home.

"Well, yes, you would be robbing the cradle, but I was referring to the fact that the boy wields the power of perfect hyperresonance. The destructive force he commands could set fire to Auldrant's atmosphere, among a lot of other rather unpleasant things. Naturally, his country is aware of this, and so they confine him to the city and keep very close track of those he associates with. I'm a necessary evil to a degree, since Asch is only willing to let the best look after himself and his better half, but I'm afraid that agents of Daath, especially the sister of his creator, would not be approved of. I'm amazed Guy's cover story held up this long, even with Malkuth's assistance. There are around three million people on Auldrant. Luke could, especially if hyperresonance allows teleportation, kill _every last one of us_. With ease."

So this was what it took to make Jade be serious. "His original, Asch, was the one born as the Scion of Lorelei. Vandesdelca created another to take Asch's place as Luke so that he could control that power. _Imperfect_ hyperresonance was what destroyed Hod. Do not let yourselves be fooled into thinking he's harmless, and above all do _not_ coddle him. Vandesdelca is still out there. He's evaded capture for seven years, and he must have a plan. He will move, and if Luke isn't strong enough to deal with what comes then we are, very likely, _all doomed_."

This was all classified beyond classified. If Dr. Balfour wasn't the inventor of fomicry and the two of them weren't god-generals they would be tossed into the cells at Oracle Knight HQ and never heard from again just for knowing it.

Once they were impressed with the seriousness of the matter Jade stopped piercing them with his red eyes and put his spear away, too. "Keep that in mind. Or try, at least. The boy has this ability to inspire emotion even in someone like myself. It at least partially has to do with resonance between memory particle-containing seventh fonons as opposed to hyperresonance. Other replicas and seventh fonists have similar effects, to lesser degrees of course."

"Resonance?" Anise asked.

"It's part of the difference between seventh fonon fonic artes and all others," Ion explained. "If you listen to a hymn, it gives you a peaceful feeling, right?" Anise looked blank. "Well, I'm especially sensitive to it. The Fon Master has to be. Seventh Fonons contain the memories of the entire planet and everyone on it, past and present. Yulia used that to create the Score through her pact with Lorelei. When two people are near each other or thinking about each other, their seventh fonons will resonate a bit, and they can feel what the other feels and share memories. They won't see the other person's memories, if it worked like that we'd know every detail of everyone's lives ever, but it's still there. Everyone's hearts beating in time: that's resonance."

"Very poetic, Ion." Jade applauded. "In practical terms, that means that people like Luke and Ion are somewhat telempathic. They can subconsciously sense how others feel, and almost automatically use that to determine how to interact with them. For instance, I feel the urge to vomit when someone gives me a cutesy thank-you, and I'm starved for intelligent, or at least pseudo-intelligent, conversation. Luke is very fond of me, and since he can feel what I like he acts accordingly to attempt to make me happy. That's a dangerous trait.

"As a child, he wants the adults nearby to approve of his behavior so he knows that he's doing things right. If what the people he loves want, or even _expect_, from him is a helpless infant that they can control and protect, then he would be that for them if he didn't have a spine. You'll meet him later, his name is Asch."

As he watched Luke lean against the deck railing, Fluffy (Tear shouldn't have been allowed to name the cheagle) pointing unknown things out to him, Jade mused, "If Van had kept him I shudder to think what would have happened. Sync is bad enough, and he's nowhere near as connected to the fonon as the isofonic replica of the isofon of the seventh fonon's sentience itself."

Sync. Another of the Order's highly classified secrets was the project begun 14 years ago, the one that had gotten Dist amnesty even after Van's plots had been discovered. The previous fon master had become horribly ill in the year 2000 when he hadn't even taken office yet (Evenos had gone into hermitage after ending the Hod War), yet no successor could be found to Evenos' destined successor. Sync had been the first attempt at a replica. The original Ion had finally died two years ago, and they'd hoped the current Ion was close enough to an isofon, which would have given him a healthy body when he died thanks to the Big Bang Effect. Sadly, or happily, take your pick, only a perfect isofon had that effect.

Arietta had transferred rather than be constantly reminded of the loss of her Ion, and it looked like Anise had finally become her official successor. Grand Maestro Mohs was doing most of the day-to-day work of running the order until Ion turned twenty and became a legal adult. This was especially necessary because of Ion's health. As he wasn't the chosen fon master reading the score and working Daathic fonic artes were not easy for him: it took a lot of work to make his frequency look correct. If he were exhausted by both his duties as Fon Master _and_ dealing with the bureaucracy there was no way he would live to see twenty.

Jade should not know about this. But, really, they must have needed him to oversee Dist's involvement.

"I do tend to pick up things from the people I like," Ion told her. "That's why I spend as much time as possible with Anise and Jade."

"Well, we're not the best people to attempt to steal personality traits from," Jade told him. Tear agreed. "For one thing, we aren't seventh fonists, and hence we're very hard to pick up on. In fact, I'm as close to non-resonating as a human can be. I think Luke finds it restful. However, malleability of personality is often linked to resonance. Anise and I are both utterly incorrigible. I'm heartless, she's greedy. You need more of that sort of selfishness, since you are not a replacement."

"You mean he might love me _because_ I love him for his money?" Anise looked impossibly perky.

"Well, it's easy to tell whose side you're on. The one that pays best. The seventh fonon can often result in either gullible idiots, like everyone here but myself and Anise, or perfect con artists, like Vandesdelca. He can show people exactly what they want to see, and quite possibly use resonance to cause them to feel what he wants them to feel. I'm almost immune, which often causes me to pick up on lies that everyone else present buys."

"So he could play us?" Anise looked at Luke with new suspicion.

"He's as capable of it as he is of killing us all. Meaning that it's well within his theoretical capabilities but he's not likely to. Asch, however, is a future king. Remember, the root of this is that our unhappiness causes his unhappiness, and vice versa. That's what resonance is. Obviously, he's not a masochist. Part of the reason he's so obnoxiously positive and upbeat is so that his happiness will make those in his vicinity happy. I did some experiments when he was younger, and his sadness will cause people to be either mopey or cranky, since they are affected by it, and they can have no idea why they're crying or who's doing what that angers them."

"You did experiments?" Experiments on a little kid where just the resonance alone made people feel like that?

"For the first six months if they were separated for more than two hours Luke would cry and Asch would start attacking whoever was keeping him from Luke, generally me. They had to be weaned off each other."

"Really?" Tear was worried. "He looks… Unhappy, but that's just because of the liger eggs, right?"

"And homesickness, don't forget. He does have emotions of his own, replica of the Scion of Lorelei or not." Once again she was missing the point. "He is both a human being, in fact I'm far less humane than he is, and a living weapon. That's why it's so important to remember that he's both, so that he stays a good person and becomes a better one. Otherwise, we all die." On that cheery note, Jade went back to work.

* * *

><p>Luckily, Luke cheered up an hour or two before Guy arrived. "Hoy! Permission to board?"<p>

"Hmm, let me think. It took you so long to get here, maybe I should make you run alongside so that you'll report to your post a little quicker next time," Jade replied over the loudspeaker.

"I know a song that gets on everybody's nerves." The others had no idea what Luke was talking about.

"Permission to board granted." Shutting down the loudspeaker, Jade told Luke that, "Really, I don't see what's so great about pets. Peony's rappigs and your golden retriever are far more trouble than they're worth."

Luke was out the door to go greet Guy long before Jade finished. They trailed out after him in time to see the two clap each other on the back in greeting. Tear couldn't fathom the idea that Guy might want to hurt Luke, seeing them like this. "That's Count Gardios?" Anise asked.

"Everything but the manor in Grand Chokmah was annihilated, Anise. He has the family's investments, of course, but the interest is tied up in helping the people who were able to escape Hod before the former emperor had it destroyed."

"Boo, I don't only care about that. He's handsome. _Really_ handsome."

"He also has a phobia stemming from his sister and her maids sheltering him from Duke fon Fabre's forces with their own bodies and waking up covered in their corpses. If a woman touches him he will panic, instinctively thinking that if he doesn't get away from them they will be killed."

"So I should leave him alone?"

"No, you should tackle him at every excuse. He needs to get over that fear, and you're Anise, so you certainly won't die saving him anytime soon."

"Thanks, I think." Irritating thing about Jade number gazillion and two was that he managed to say things that were good because of the bad stuff and bad because of the good stuff, so you couldn't reject the insult without rejecting the compliment. "I'm the unstoppable Anise! Right, Ion?"

"Right!"

"Oh good, they're finally done bonding."

"How did you find me?" Luke asked Guy as they came close enough the others could hear them.

"The detection fontech told us that you'd ended up in Tataroo Valley, so Natalia got me on a courier to Chesedonia. You weren't there, so I hopped onto a smuggler's ship that put me ashore at what's left of Rotelro Bridge. Then I followed the road towards Engave, since that's the first stop, heard that Jade had gone through and picked up a couple of passengers, and here I am." It took awhile for Guy to recognize Tear: he'd only seen her briefly and she was still disguised. "Uh…"

"I'm not planning to arrest you, although I do want to ask you some questions."

"He has a deposition on file with me. It's back in my office in Grand Chokmah, I'm afraid." Jade adjusted his glassed. "Anise, Ion, this is Guy Cecil, otherwise known as Count Gardios. Guy, these young ladies are God-General Fon Master Guardian Anise Tatlin and Fon Master Ion."

"Um…" Guy tried to figure out how to ask how much these guys were in on.

"Tear Grants here is Vandesdelca's baby sister. She claims to have joined the Oracle Knights to bring him to justice. How quaint. She acts under Moh's orders. They're all aware of Luke's circumstances, although only Ion has access to the relevant portions of the Sixth Fonstone." In other words, Tear was sort of okay, but an idealist and working for someone utterly devoted to the score.

"As for Anise, she's also under Moh's authority, since he's essentially acting Fon Master, but her true loyalty is to the Fon Master she guards, of course." In other words, Guy noted from the very slight stress on true, she's a triple agent. Openly a young and innocent guardian, also taking orders from Mohs, but when it came down to it she was Ion's. "Well, him and the almighty gald."

"Stuff it, old man." Anise had also picked up on that. Jade detested all the people that had tried to become his apprentices, but if people were going to let his intelligence rub off on them with no effort on his part, who was he to complain?

Luckily it seemed to have gone right over Tear's head. He'd intended to let her figure it out on her own, or not, while she was just another watcher down under, but as she seemed to be here and gotten involved in so spectacular a fashion he might have to drop hints or her ignorance could be a problem at some point. Aside from Guy they were all so painfully young.


	5. Chapter 5

_Something that Japanese fanart sites do that I thought was nice was draw kiriban pictures when they reached a certain number of hits, etc., in order to thank the people who thought their art was worth looking at. So, whenever I reach some milestone, I write a kiriban fic for the person who was nice enough to write that review or favorite me, etc., because it really does mean a lot._

_One of Windraider's reviews to this fic was my four thousandth review archived on this site, which is obviously a big milestone. So, I would like to take this opportunity to say thank you to that person, and also say that if they sent me a reply to the message I sent them asking what they wanted me to write, I didn't get it. Kiriban fics can be in any fandom I know, any pairing the prompter likes, etc. My policy when I can't get in touch with the winner within a certain amount of time is to reward the kiriban to someone else (I ended up doing kiribans for the 1000th and 1001st that way once, when the 1000th got in touch with me later). It's okay if someone just needs more time to decide, though. There are two fics that I've owed people for months but they haven't gotten around to sending me prompts. _

* * *

><p>Getting the Tartarus across the Fubras despite the wrecked bridge took some time even with all his minions, ahem, soldiers to do the manual labor of creating a usable crossing point. In the process something interesting turned up.<p>

"How very convenient." Jade let Guy operate the fon machinery, although he looked closely over his shoulder. "How very, very convenient."

"We're too near Akzeriuth," Luke agreed, grimacing.

"You have to actually bring people to the city," Jade reminded him. "Still, yes, indications are that the pieces are being moved around on the board. Quite dramatically, in the case of you and Tear being dropped into my lap." He sighed. "Really, Mohs is such a fool. If the Score is as absolute as he believes it is then it doesn't need his help."

"This is the equipment they used," Guy confirmed. "They tried to wipe all the data from it."

"Tried?"

"Dist told you that he wasn't involved in shutting down Choral Castle. It looks like whoever they got to do it didn't know all the tricks. This is based on the machines they used on Hod, and those had incredibly redundant data storage, since they were experimental." Thinking about what happened left a bitter taste in Guy's mouth. "At least they tried to make sure that all those people's deaths wouldn't be wasted by the data getting wiped in a malfunction or something."

"Small comfort." It was Jade's desire to undo a death that had so very ironically caused all those innocent deaths.

"If I can borrow some parts from the Tartarus and bring the operating disc with us, then I can probably recover a lot of the data from it. The only _real_ way to erase those is to melt them down, and it looks like they just wiped all the records. They didn't even record over them, and they used a brand new disc. All I should have to do is measure the recording groove depths, figure out what encryption they used, and then spend awhile cleaning it up. This only records what they did with it, though, the measurements they took and other operations." Like the details of the fomicry process they'd used. "Analysis would be on the hard disc, and that's not here." That would be way, way too easy.

"Asch says you're an idiot: wait until we get home to do that unless you want it to leak. Can we keep them from figuring out we took the disc?"

"That's why I want to start working on it now. They have to check out this place periodically, and since we just passed through they'll come and know that we found it. If we leave it for later they'll move it again, and if we take the drive they'll know we took it and maybe try to do something about it."

Neither of them liked Luke's headaches, the pain this caused him, but it did come in handy sometimes. Well worth the effort of syncing their fon slots, especially since the emotional connection, unlike the verbal, didn't cause headaches and did prevent them from suffering when they were separated physically. They could also leave their bodies, or that was how they described it, to visit the other person without anyone being in pain, but that made it impossible to hold a two-way conversation: the person who left's body was unconscious, which was not only vulnerable but meant that they couldn't pass on the information: Natalia was being filled in via Asch and looking some things up while he was occupied with maintaining the link despite the pain.

"I say we take the disc and then I destroy that thing. Asch agrees, and says I should act like I did it because I was immature and frustrated with not getting anything out of it, plus what it was used for." Luke did want it destroyed, the thing that had tortured his brother over and over and over. "Natalia wants me to save some itty bitty pieces so she can stomp on them."

"In that case we'd best hurry up." Jade was reasonably sure no one was watching them in here, but his men were doing the guarding and if one of them wasn't a spy Van and Mohs weren't even trying anymore. "You're not planning on using hyperresonance." He'd better not be.

"If I really snapped a hyperresonance wouldn't just get this machine. And like I said, we're too close to Akzeriuth." Kimlasca wouldn't want Baticul itself destroyed and no one cared about the Tower of Rem, so Akzeriuth was the best target as well as the one Van had told Asch he would be used on. There were only three 'miners' cities' on Auldrant.

"I got it," Guy told them, replacing the side panel he'd removed while they were talking. "Will it fit in your pack, Luke?"

"I'll take it," Jade did that. "I'm less of a capture risk, and there's not much point taking it if we don't get to keep it." Ah, the contamination effect. No better storage system. An item bag like Luke's had an opening and anyone authorized or able to break the security could use it. They could cut Jade open and never find the disc, its fonons hidden among his own. Perfect, provided you were good enough to avoid the side effects. Ah well, he had never been sane to begin with.

A few Daathic Fonic Artes that Daath didn't know Luke and Asch knew and a Radiant Howl later, they were back on board, once again stuck waiting for the work to be completed and placing bets. Really, Luke had more right to be Fon Master than Ion did, although good luck convincing the Order of that anytime soon. The timing even worked out: the fon master before Ion had started to weaken when he cast Daathic Fonic Artes around the day Luke fon Fabre was born. Copies of the instructions for most Daathic Fonic Artes had been stolen centuries ago, but until now no one but the Fon Master had been able to use them without dying, so they had mainly been kept in the archives so Kimlasca and Malkuth would know the Fon Master's capabilities.

The Order of Lorelei was right: read a score of death and of course people would try to avoid it. Make it a score of death for ten thousand people and a war on top of that, and they became very motivated.

The easiest way would be to send one of them to the Tower of Rem, which didn't really matter, along with 'his people,' who Guy and himself could qualify as for Luke in a pinch: Asch would be easier. The Tower, they'd found, could qualify as a miner's city, according to some history texts in Yulia City that Ion had helped them dig up. The Order had been keeping an underground city secret? Among other things.

As for the war, countries could be officially in a state of war without actually fighting, and people would do a lot of ridiculous things like that in order to follow the Score.

Ion was one thing, but Anise's family had worked for the Order for generations and Tear was a descendant of Yulia who had just left Yulia City for the first time. The idea of playing with the score like that?

Tear would be relatively easy. In fact, she was a little more vulnerable to Luke than Jade liked.

In any case, one of them would have been there on the first day of this year if it weren't for the "destroy the city _and himself_" portion.

Luke was willing, for Asch's sake, and while the Score would be happier if Asch did it Luke was the one who would die whoever fulfilled the Score. Asch, who had seven years to think about this, said that he would prevent it at all costs but if Luke were to be reabsorbed he would survive sanity relatively intact, his heart back in his chest.

Personally, Jade doubted that. The fonons reintegrating would add to his mental stability, certainly, but that much? They'd put a fon slot seal on Luke once, to test if Asch was really fine with not being able to see or sense him. Justifying the expense to the king had been difficult, necessary as the test was.

Luckily they'd done it in a well-reinforced room and there had only been a sheet separating them. Asch had gotten much, much stronger since it had stopped being necessary for Jade to forcibly separate them.

He didn't know if that was Asch being overly optimistic, lying so that they, especially Luke, wouldn't worry about something that was possibly inevitable, or both.

They should all accept the fact that Luke would not live to reach nine, and quite possibly not eight, either. Yet it was simply unacceptable. Of course, the man who created fomicry should not be allowed to hold that sort of opinion regarding someone else's death. Look what happened last time.

* * *

><p>Luke could have dodged, but he just opened his arms when Asch fell out of the sky onto him, letting himself be knocked to the ground and laughing with delight. "You got it to work other than within line of sight!"<p>

"Finally." Asch got up and helped Luke up. "Actually, this was closer to a random jump than I like. You're a easy target to hit, that's all. Especially if you don't dodge."

"You were only a couple feet up and I missed you." As soon as his footing was solid Luke tackled Asch, knocking him to the ground. Asch also could have dodged, but he just smiled. Not Luke's grin, but a real smile.

"Guy, I believe it's after sunset."

"Alright, alright already." Guy took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

Anise giggled: she knew what Guy had bet Jade that Asch would make it before the end of the day. "Let me!"

"No, he made it part of the bet that he could keep his eyes closed, and it's too easy to imagine you're a boy. Tear, would you do the honors?"

"Boo!" Anise was displeased.

"Are you okay with this, Guy?"

"If you don't he'll get a crew member to do it." And Guy was already vibrating with tension, wanting it over with.

"If you're sure." Tear hugged him, Jade counted.

Guy managed to get out of Tear's arms before Jade reached four. "Damn it!"

"Now we have to start over," Jade agreed.

"That's Dr. Killorcure for you." Asch left off touseling Luke's hair to comment. Jade might be… himself, but good intentions or not it was hard for him to like someone who had kept separating him from his Luke.

"How long can you stay?" Luke asked, excited.

"I can play around for a few hours, but then I need to work on getting home. I can use Natalia as a target, but it might take awhile to find her."

The difference between Luke and Asch was large enough it was hard to believe they were replicas, but when Tear looked closer it became obvious that their faces were identical, their bodies as close as two different training regimens would allow, and even their hair in the same style.

The real difference was in personality.

Frankly, if they hadn't had the same outer age she would have taken them for father and son. Never having known her own parents Tear was a bit jealous. Luke's joy that Asch was here, Asch's relief at seeing him safe and sound as well as a more reserved, paternal affection… Maybe that was how some older brothers acted. Van had sometimes done things like sing her a lullaby. She could see Asch doing that for Luke.

Asch had less muscle than Luke, she saw when she looked him over with a soldier's eye. Of course, as future king he would have a lot more demands on his time than Luke did. That same soldier's eye told her that Asch was the more dangerous opponent. Luke had no killer instinct. Asch would take an opponent down without hesitating if it was necessary.

When his eyes met hers, it was very clear that this especially applied to possible allies of the man that had tortured him.

Luke, compared to Asch, was very like a staff compared to a sword. Luke contained power, obviously, but the sharp edges and gleam of a sword seemed so much more polished and overtly threatening than even the most powerful and ornate staffs.

Asch was honed.

Asch, now, she could see as a living weapon. No, more than that.

The Scion of Lorelei, the Light of the Sacred Flame.

Was this how Yulia had felt, when she came face to face with Lorelei? The sentience of the seventh fonon, the judge of fate?

Then he looked away, and the feeling was gone. Tear managed not to sigh in relief. "Jade, could I have that disc? I'll take it back with me."

"Good thinking." Jade pulled a bit of fontech out of nowhere, the same way he did his spear. "Can you handle passengers?"

"I'll work on finding out as soon as I can find a monster."

Jade waved at the river. "Shall we?"

* * *

><p>Anise had been looking in another direction when he appeared and missed the light show. "That's really cool!" she exclaimed when she saw Asch, and a captured bird, teleport across a field to Luke.<p>

"It's still alive." Asch let it go, although it wasn't alive for long since it headed for Luke by mistake, squawking for vengeance.

"It's hyperresonance, and not safe enough to be used in battle, but this will be very useful," Asch judged. "Luke," he started, pulling Luke's head down to talk quietly, possibly giving him tips.

When Luke did it, landing on top of Asch was deliberate. Asch had clearly expected it and braced for it: he was able to catch Luke without falling to the ground. Their laughs were so different but they just sounded right together. Everyone found themselves smiling, even Jade and Anise.


	6. Chapter 6

_Ion, in this universe, would like to believe that his original wasn't a complete monster. Since he was protected from knowing that he definitely was, unlike in canon._

* * *

><p>Ion rarely asked himself what his original would do in any given situation. That was because he knew what the answer would be. He had been tutored in how to approximate Ion's behavior once he turned out not to be Ion. He could do it, mimic the iron hand in the well-padded velvet glove, although the occasional iron will he manifested was usually caused by 'childish' compassion instead of the arrogance of having a place in the world and a mission in it.<p>

Fon Master Ion had been the Fon Master, the one whose life was worth more than anyone else's on the planet. Worth enough that he'd allied with Van against his own score of death.

Oh, Ion wasn't certain that was what his predecessor had been doing, but he could read the score perfectly well with the help of the sort of stabilization Sync had. Ion's illness hadn't been inexplicable. It had been caused by the gradual loss of his power as it went to his successor. He'd lost Lorelei's blessing. The Daathic fonic artes had started to take the same toll on him they'd taken on Evenos when Ion was born and now took on his replica. The other Fon Masters had found their heirs and raised them while taking it relatively easy, they hadn't called it an illness and no one had really noticed. They'd hidden the phenomenon so no one would know that the Fon Master was weakened.

Then Evenos' heir started to display the phenomenon and Ion had no heir. Or rather, his heir wasn't in the Score.

Ion hoped his original had known something Ion didn't. Something that would explain why he'd played Mohs and Van off against each other like that, failed to find and train Luke while he was still Luke like that.

Even the Fon Master hadn't been able to force Asch to back down, had known he wouldn't survive a confrontation with Lorelei's scion. That was why the succession project had been revealed the way it had. Oh, certainly Ion hadn't known what else was being done with the technology. He'd only sponsored the project because the world needed a fon master.

A crying Arietta had revealed otherwise.

A fon master who actively tried to destroy the score: why? He'd clung to life no matter what because he had a mission, right?

The date on the letters he'd left for his replacement was coming up. Ion hadn't even told Jade about them, and he told Jade most things. This, though, was why he was here and while he trusted Jade he trusted Jade to be Jade. The world and its future had to come before Malkuth and the people Jade personally approved of.

If he were Ion, he'd have Mohs executed and if the order wasn't obeyed he'd do it himself because the Fon Master had to control the order. It was the Order of Lorelei and the Fon Master was Lorelei's chosen.

Only he hadn't been. Asch, and Luke, were. This was the first time Ion had met them and he just could tell. Even before he'd figured out who Luke was from Jade's hints he'd been able to tell that this was someone special. Someone who would protect him, who would protect them all, that Ion's very life belonged to. Ion would die for Luke without a moment's hesitation. Jade and Anise would scold him for thinking that, since Anise was sick of seeing him be treated as a doormat and Jade felt responsible.

Luke and Ion were Jade's apologies to his professor and the people of Hod.

Oh, and of course a Fon Master who actually _was_ the order's master would be a lot more effective. He liked that Jade pointed out how things that seemed selfish actually weren't. If Ion took control of the order and killed Mohs for treating him like this like the original Ion would have then he could start doing his job and help save Luke and guide the world. He was supposed to be Ion's replacement, not a walking score reader for Mohs. Still, while Ion didn't see anything wrong with being his original's replacement he didn't actually want to be him. He'd been nice to Arietta, but he'd known everything that Van was planning and actively helped him.

Ion was happy that Luke existed, it seemed right to him even though it wasn't in the score. Maybe that was why? Maybe the original Ion had known Lorelei's will better than Ion did?

It was strange. If he looked at the two of them his eyes invariably focused on Luke. Drawn to him, or guided to him? Why the replica and not the original? Why was Luke so much more important than Asch? Why was it Luke that made Ion feel in his very bones that he would do anything for this person, even go against the score, even kill Mohs with his own hand?

"A gald for your thoughts?" Jade had crept up behind him again. Ion was used to it: after all, he'd been with Jade for the first three months of his short life, while the programming that had let him be created knowing how to walk and talk was checked over and his health was confirmed as well as it could be and so on. Jade suddenly appearing behind him was normal, not a surprise.

"I'm just watching them." Anise, who was bored stiff, had joined in helping Luke, Asch, and Tear kill the random bands of monsters that kept attacking the working soldiers. If they did it themselves that freed up the troops that would have been on guard duty to help with the manual labor. Jade was taking a break, with the usual excuse of being an old man but the real purpose of going to get progress reports and do other officer things. Guy was the one really taking a break, although he was still yelling advice to them from the sidelines.

"Not so much watching them as watching their eyes, perhaps?"

"You noticed?"

"I noticed you noticing." Ion looked where Jade did this time. "Among the many other hats I wear, colonel, necromancer, pediatrician, I am a scientist and that is a discipline where the ability to notice details is key. Most people don't notice it, but as you can see Luke attracts attention. Or perhaps I should say recognition. People pay attention to him. They know he's important. Oh, it's not overt enough to override reality, but now that he's in disguise and outside of Baticul, dealing with people who have not seen him before the reaction to him could be described as déjà vu. People _know _Luke. They gravitate towards him. They orbit him as Luna and the fon belt do Auldrant. And Auldrant itself… orbits Rem."

Okay, that Ion hadn't noticed. The same way everyone focused on Luke, Luke focused on Asch.

"If Asch weren't well aware that he's first in Luke's heart and didn't understand the phenomenon he'd quite likely be insanely jealous. Princess Natalia, his fiancée, is a seventh fonist and quite vulnerable to the planet's memory."

"Vulnerable?" Of course, Jade made everything sound like a bad thing, but it was wrong to think of Luke that way.

"You know it's not like that, I presume? And how do you know that?" At Ion's silence, Jade smiled. "I rest my case."

"Actually, I do know. It's not just feel: I _know_. It really is memory, isn't it." How nice.

"Really? And what do you know?" Jade was intrigued now.

"That everything's going to be okay."

"Everything?" That was clearly a delusion.

"No, not everything, but it's going to turn out okay, no matter what. But… there's going to be a lot of what." He had to help him, Luke needed him to help. No, he needed all of them. "It's not going to be easy, but if we help him he will…" A normal child would have thought of it in terms of mommy and daddy making it all better. Ion had Jade and Anise. "Beat them for us."

As if to show who Ion had picked up that way of thinking about it from, Anise's cry of, "I'll kill you bastards!" rang out after he finished speaking.

"Beat who?" Jade prompted.

"Anything." No, that wasn't it. "Everything." That was the right word.

Most people looked at like that by the infamous necromancer would have headed for the nearest exit, praying they'd escape dissection. Ion thought it was normal, just waiting for Jade to see what he was looking for or ask a question so Ion could help him find the answer he was looking for. Jade wondered if he was corrupting the innocent, letting replicas think a monster like him was a decent human being. And yet, it was… nice, he'd have to use that word even if the word nice actually meant precise and there was nothing precise about this nebulous feeling, for people to understand him and not see him as an incomprehensible monster.

Ion and Luke didn't need resonance to cause him to feel terribly mushy inside. There was a character in a story nicknamed Thornmallow, supposedly because he was prickly on the outside but soft and harmless on the inside, and throughout the story everyone who met him had either said the thorn part was correct and the mallow part made no sense or the mallow part was right and they couldn't imagine him being thorny and hurting those who reached out to him.

Jade hadn't even known he _had_ a soft side seven years ago.

That was why he'd joined in this grand conspiracy. Saving those thousands of lives was almost an afterthought. Even experimenting with directing the score and perhaps learning how both Akzeriuth and the next Hod after it could be prevented was almost an excuse. They weren't, of course, but helping Luke equaled doing them. Luke was what made it possible.

Potential. Potential energy.

Luke was the future (quite possibly literally, although he wasn't going to voice a theory that radical without more proof than a fonon frequency, metaphors, and old legends), Luke was their hope, and everyone wanted to see what tomorrow would bring, everyone wanted to live a good life.

Still, Luke being the one they orbited around instead of Asch didn't fit the score. It did fit Jade's theory, and Jade was usually correct about these things.

The Order preached that if people followed the Score they would have prosperity and happiness. That theory had been thoroughly disproven before the Score was a century old. Jade believed in helping himself, and sadly others as well because if Jade didn't help them then where would they be? He shuddered to think. Saphir, for one, would be driving him insane instead of under house arrest at Nephry's. Not that he knew he was under house arrest. Ah, Saphir. Jade had a theory that no one could be sane, intelligent, and caring all at the same time. Two out of the three was the maximum and frankly one out of three was too much for most of the people he sadly shared this planet with to manage.

Dist, Saphir, was insane, and Jade had gone from utterly uncaring and only somewhat sane to outright insane. It was insane to play around with the Score. But if he didn't do it others would, and that was what led to Hod and would lead to an even worse war. Asch was also admittedly insane: it was good for people to realize that about themselves instead of buying into their delusions. Luke was sane and caring enough to often decently fake intelligence, but he shuddered to think where the infant would be without them.

Luke and Ion could only afford to be so soft because they had people who would happily stab, skewer, shoot, or beat into a bloody pulp those who tried to take advantage of it. And, sadly, that softness seemed to be an incurable side effect of the power Jade, and the world, needed. How vexing. He could lecture Tear, Anise, and himself and they would still shelter him, he could lecture Luke and Luke would still think he was foolish because, in Luke's experience, kindness and trust were almost never taken advantage of and it always turned out okay. That made Jade sound like a paranoid fool even though Luke knew better.

Of course, sanity, intelligence, and caring: which quality was the worst for a near-god to lack?

An uncaring god: that was the Lorelei of the Score. No thank you.

An insane man with that sort of power? Vandesdelca had dreamed of it, and if Jade hadn't secretly investigated what was happening on Hod even after rejecting participation in the project he would find those dreams nightmarish. Peony knew the outline, Jade knew the details.

Intelligence? Luke had people for that, and he was sane enough to pick good advisors in that regard, if Jade did say so himself. Or, well, not so much advisors as parents. Suzanne was too sickly to do much parenting, which was incredibly exhausting and time-intensive if done right, Jade had discovered, and Duke fon Fabre was actively trying to keep her from getting too attached to them since her health would not bear the shock of losing a child, not after Luke's kidnapping.

Asch and Natalia had no trouble adjusting to suddenly having someone else in their relationship because that someone else? Had been a baby. Obviously Natalia wouldn't object to Asch helping Luke so much since he obviously needed it, and Asch not only was fine with but_ liked_ that Natalia would go on about Luke this and Luke that and wouldn't he look just perfect in some outfit because he was _their_ Luke. Natalia was beloved by the people of Kimlasca even more than the eccentric Peony, who had a longer time and more resources to do the hospital-creating and new port-opening public work projects she was famous for.

A wonderful, awful idea, to marry her to Asch right before Akzeriuth. Then their martyr would leave behind not only a grieving newlywed princess but hopefully a pregnant one. Pregnant with the rightful heir to the throne, in fact, since it was impossible for Natalia to be Ingobert and his queen's daughter. Not with her blonde hair. So very cold-blooded. Such wonderful propaganda, easily enough to rouse the Kimlascan people to war despite the fact that Malkuth would be the victim of the disaster.

Which was why Asch, with a very young male attitude of not wanting to know about this sort of stuff (really, he was getting married soon, he ought to be comfortable about times of the month and so on by now), had given him a request and letter from Natalia inquiring into birth control. The princess asking anyone in Baticul about that when everyone knew that she loved children would cause gossip and arouse suspicions. The letter had been very… Natalia. In fact, more so than usual because she'd had the sort of young love dreams of getting pregnant on the wedding night itself and they'd picked out the names of at least their first six children years ago.

And she was going to have to keep herself from becoming pregnant, meaning that if Asch (or worse, Asch and Luke) did die she wouldn't even have his child to remember him by, because the Little Mother of Kimlasca refused to let another child be used the way her father and uncle were using the three of them.

The control she was holding on to by the skin of her teeth vibrated in every carefully-worded line. It was amazing that it had been two years since Asch had told them and no one seemed to have found out except the approved people. Asch, Luke, Natalia, Guy, Jade, Peony, and Ion, who had been asked to read the score and then insisted on doing something to help.

Of course, Van knew Asch knew. At least, that he'd told Asch. Asch was quite a good actor, and he truly hadn't been in his right mind for the majority of the time he was with Van. Jade had also testified that repression was natural under the circumstances. It was, very natural, and Asch's memory was cloudy. That, however, he remembered very, very well.

ND 2018, the score confirmed. They just had to get through the year.

It was cold comfort that if Akzeriuth was destroyed as the leaders of Kimlasca planned, if one of them did die there and Luke ceased to be, the sole surviving scion of Lorelei would be fighting on the side of Malkuth in the war to the knife that would follow. In fact, that was the probable outcome.

An outcome that involved Luke's death (oh, and thousands of others but Jade didn't know them and it was hard enough for him to care about people he'd known for years, let alone population demographics) was not an acceptable one.


	7. Chapter 7

"Don't worry, he'll be fine." Ion's voice jolted Jade out of his reverie, and he realized he'd stopped paying attention to the outside world while his eyes were pointed at Ion's face. Quite often people would ask why he was staring at them and he'd had no idea he was and didn't regard them as worth noticing, much less examining. However, he had been examining Ion when he started asking himself the question that Ion had somehow divined.

The idea of other people actually understanding what was going through his head: he'd love to blame it on their seventh fonons but he'd disproven that theory. There simply wouldn't be enough to go on.

Ion, and Luke, actually understood him. Even his own sister was barely starting to and Peony, who was the closest anyone had come before then, put it down to Jade being odd. He didn't understand Jade, Jade didn't understand Peony, but they both knew the other person was odd and accepted this. It was people thinking they understood either of them that caused problems. For instance, Asch had thought that Peony wanted to marry Natalia when/if Asch died. A normal person in Peony's position, saying those things, would have. Peony didn't work that way.

Perhaps it was the lack of preconceptions about how people thought that allowed the two of them to understand him better in a few months than his best friend did.

People learned how to interact with others very early on. Replicas missed that age period, along with walking and talking, and had to play catch-up. Ion and Luke thought that Jade was _easy_ to understand. Jade was logical. Other people weren't. The 'they're odd, but I like them enough to work at getting along anyway' attitude that Jade had thought was the best a monster like him could get was the view Luke and Ion, as non-monstrous as it came, applied to almost everyone _but_ Jade. They had to rely on resonance to tell what people wanted because they couldn't interpret the hidden signals any more than Jade could.

Under the circumstances the worries he'd had were inevitable: anyone would worry. Yet, anyone else would have been put off by his inscrutable face and thought he was too inhuman to possibly be worrying about others. Luke and Ion saw past that.

It reminded him of when he'd met Gelda Nebilim. It had been love at first debate. Finally! Someone intelligent! He'd let Saphir hang around him because as idiotic as he was regarding everything else at least he knew his third fonon from his sixth. He felt like he'd been surrounded by idiots and had finally found members of his own kind. They spoke his language!

He'd planned out proposing to and marrying her as soon as he came of age so that he could keep her with him, he'd been that pathetic. He'd wanted to be just like her.

And then he'd killed her, trying to be like her, trying to impress her. He'd lost the only person who understood him and even if he knew the replica wouldn't be her at least if he made one there would be someone else like her, someone else like him, and he wouldn't be alone.

And here they all were.

Ion and Luke didn't have that drive to fiddle with things and see what happened that marked a true scientist, but they, and Asch, cared about his researches and knew what he was talking about by necessity, even though they didn't share his mindset.

A half-mad escapee and a big baby with the power to destroy cities. When Peony had ordered him to Baticul he'd been very seriously considering killing them if there was any way he could get away with it, and perhaps even if he couldn't. He hadn't wanted the world to end because of his idiocy. He'd waited, so that he could gather information on them and gain enough trust that he could abuse it, and he'd ended up being studied and giving trust as well. Peony and Nephry said they were the best thing that had ever happened to him, and at first he'd been angry. How could they forget Professor Nebilim? Of course she meant more than anything to him!

Gelda had made him realize that other people could be friends and forced him to consider the results of his actions, although he hadn't learned soon enough. If he hadn't known Gelda he would have gone with Plan E, that would have been the most reliable way of taking them both out.

Oh, yes, Ion would be watching him still and waiting patiently for Jade to respond somehow, either with words or whatever had told Ion he needed that reassurance. "Thank you."

Ion smiled, and Jade realized he'd said thank you for an emotional platitude. Or, it would have been a platitude if almost anyone else had said it. Ion had said it only because he had reason to believe it was true.

Jade had known the truly nice (Nephry, Peony), the highly intelligent (Gelda, Dist), and the actually sane (Luke, Ion). They were all endangered species, but the world needed sane people the most.

If anyone but Ion and Luke tried this with him he'd treat them like he normally treated those who demanded his guidance. Except that Ion and Luke didn't demand. They didn't beg for lessons, they followed his example and thought he was wonderful for providing it even though he was just being himself, not some sort of object lesson. They liked him for him, he didn't have to bribe them by going on dreadfully boring outings and trying to ape human or proving that he was intelligent and useful enough they wanted him despite the fact he was a monster.

While creating a replica world and destroying every memory particle in existence (and the people containing them) was absurd, Jade could understand it in terms of wanting more people like these two. Van, however, had tossed Luke aside when the smart thing would have been to mold the impressionable one and turned Sync into Sync the Tempest. Van was insane, cruel, and had most likely suffered severe brain damage during the experimentation on Hod.

He wanted to kill him, but he doubted Asch would even leave enough to bury.

* * *

><p>On the day the actual bridge repair crew finally got there and was pressed into service restoring the fordlandship crossing Arietta the Wild arrived in tears. "Anise, baby Ion! Sync and some horrible people killed my mommy!"

"Really? Bastards!" Anise was about to go into gory detail when Arietta whirled.

"You! You killed her, and my brothers and sisters!" Her tear-streaked face and red-rimmed eyes were full of hurt turned to anger. If looks could kill, Arietta's would have scratched them to death.

"What?" Luke had only just left home for the first time, he'd never killed anybody.

Ion gasped. "But that couldn't have been her! She lives far north of the Cheagle Woods and she never would have been okay with her children eating everyone in Engave!"

"A horrible cheagle burned down her home, so she made them feed my family so they wouldn't starve to death." Arietta was sniffing.

"Mieuuu…" Fluffy (Tear should never have been allowed to name the cheagle, she'd been unable to think of anything but that word and "cute") retracted its head into Luke's item bag.

"That was it!" Arietta pointed. "Anise, let's get them!"

"Arietta, wait!" Ion grabbed her hand. "I'm sorry, it's all my fault! There was a liger queen in Cheagle Woods, and we went to talk to her first, but she didn't act anything like your mother and she attacked me almost right away, so I thought she was one of the ones that you said were always trying to steal her territory. I'm sorry, I should have made Tear use force field and made sure she wasn't her, it's all my fault!"

Seeing Ion so unhappy averted Arietta's wrath, for the moment. "Don't cry, baby Ion." She hesitantly gave him her doll and turned to the ligers that had come with her. After a few moments she sniffled. "She's old, and she was really hungry and she even got sick." Arietta clearly needed her doll back. "She, she really tried to eat baby Ion?" The ligers seemed to confirm that. "Mommy would never have done that if she were well." Arietta sniffled again. "So Sync was you and they were protecting you?"

"Yes. I'm so sorry, Arietta."

"It's okay, baby Ion." Arietta sniffled again, but she was calming down. "Murdering Mommy to hurt me would be evil, but if Mommy tried to eat you she wasn't Mommy anymore. Mommy had to eat Grandmommy because Grandmommy tried to eat us. It's, it's how things are." In the wild, and this was Arietta the Wild. "Anise, why weren't you with baby Ion? You promised me you'd do a good job!" She tried to wipe the tears away, although her face was still marked by them and soot. She had looked all through the burnt place where her mommy had once lived for her. Ion gave her the doll back, and she clutched it even though she was trying very hard to be fine now.

"I was stuck making the cheagles return the food from Engave they stole. I had the colonel and God-General Tear the…" Tear hadn't picked anything yet. "Her," Anise pointed at Tear. "And the Scion of Lorelei's replica watch him for me! I made _sure_ they knew what I'd do to them if Ion even got scratched." She had.

Okay, those were a good group of guardians. Arietta was finally calming down. She was a big girl, she wasn't going to cry in front of baby Ion and make him cry. "Oh, Sync's here."

"He's here?" Tokunaga was in battle-mode almost instantly. "Where!"

Arietta pointed at a mountain. "One of my friends saw him there, although he's probably not there anymore."

"Was anyone with him?" Jade asked.

Arietta didn't say anything, which was a giveaway. "Back to the Tartarus, everyone." Jade quickly rattled off instructions to a minion, who ran to go spread the alert. Arietta's loyalties were to the people who had found and befriended her. Fon Master Ion was dead: Vandesdelca was still alive. She still worked for the Oracle Knights for baby Ion's sake, although Mohs had tried to have her kicked out as soon as the previous Fon Master was dead. She wouldn't betray them to Van, she'd told Van that Ion needed her and so she had to stay with him and only him if Van was leaving, but she also wouldn't fight him, or Sync, who she now knew was another baby Ion, not just a replacement. They were careful not to remind her of the failed replicas that had been thrown into the Zaleho volcano before Van had been revealed and the project had resumed under Jade's supervision.

Killing her mother had made Sync an enemy, until she had found out otherwise. She had told them Sync was nearby since baby Ion wanted to meet his big brother and she wanted to make him hold still so she could apologize for treating him the way she had, but Van was another thing. Unless he attacked Ion she would sit out of any fights with him.

Arietta was, to put it kindly, simple, but at least that meant you knew where you stood with her.

She trailed after Ion, not really knowing what else to do.

Luke stuck close to Jade, knowing that if he did otherwise Jade would grab him and drag him along. "Should I call Asch or go back to Baticul?"

"Not just yet. Can you feel anything?"

"No, not with Ion and Tear so close." Ion and Sync weren't perfect isofons, but they were close, and Tear was also a descendant of Yulia, plus Van's sister. Between that and the seventh fonons that clustered eagerly around them, as well as Luke's own, there was too much static for Luke to sense even fonon clusters that were equally large.

"You can't pay attention to your surroundings or fight well enough with one of those headaches, and it's not a good idea for you to go to Baticul at the moment." What to do…


	8. Chapter 8

It was rare that Jade found himself outmaneuvered this drastically. He had to hand it to Van. The false bridge repair crew had even been late by the correct amount. "Everyone down!" he ordered as the ground around the Tartarus exploded.

It was reflex for him and Anise to grab Luke and Ion, who didn't have battlefield reflexes, and cover them. This had the fortunate side effect of causing the fon slot seals Sync threw as he threw off his disguise and ran towards them to hit the two of them instead of their intended targets.

Since normal soldiers were worse than useless against Sync, let alone Van, Legretta and Largo, that left Tear and Guy as combat effectives. "Arietta! Help me get Ion out of here!" Anise had already reached the same conclusion.

Arietta bit her lip, but nodded. She did want to see Van again, and she couldn't really believe he'd hurt baby Ion (despite the ones he'd consigned to the volcano), but she'd given her word. Arietta might not be on the level of the opposition here, but her allies gave her an advantage they didn't have: flight. Anise's still-enlarged Tokunaga (so it _was_ fontech after all), blocked Sync long enough for griffons to swoop down and carry Anise, Ion, and Arietta out of danger. They'd head for St. Binah as soon as Anise told Arietta where the meeting place was. For now they were headed in the wrong direction, which would hopefully throw Van off.

Not that he would count on it.

Tear and Guy had taken up defensive positions, but between Guy's childhood friend, Tear's brother, and the fact they were seriously outnumbered they did nothing but stand their ground as the four approached.

That was when Asch and Natalia appeared out of midair. Apparently Luke had made the mistake of telling Asch _why_he needed to return to Baticul right away instead of sticking to the plan.

He really, really should have known better. Natalia hit the ground casting Barrier. Asch went right for Van in a way befitting someone who had earned the title of Berserker at the Baticul Coliseum. That normally should have thrown Van off-balance enough for Luke to get to his feet and join in, making it five against four, even if Tear's lack of combat experience and possible reluctance to hurt Van for real meant she wouldn't be up to much but healing and using that force field of hers. Not that those were artes to be sneezed at, of course.

Maybe Asch hadn't waited long enough to be warned about the fon slot seals. If Van had brought two for Ion and Luke… He'd known Asch would come if Luke was in danger. Guy shouted a warning and ran forward, but he was too late.

Suddenly unable to sense Luke, and probably having flashbacks to Luke's creation, Asch screamed and screamed. Now that Asch was limited to only the human body's raw strength without the ability to use fonons to enhance it he was easily restrained by Van. Natalia's bow was out and she almost shook with the effort of not firing. She could hit Asch. She knew that Asch would want her to take that chance, but she just couldn't.

Jade had started telling Luke to get out of here as soon as Van smiled and he foresaw the inevitable, but with his own power sealed he wasn't even able to hold Luke back. That fell to Guy, who had stopped his rush when he saw it was futile only a few yards from Van. "Asch!" Luke could see him, Luke wasn't flashbacking, so Luke was still as rational as anyone his age could be under the circumstances, which perhaps wasn't very.

Luke was glowing.

Jade, who was observing in the certain knowledge that there was no point in getting involved when he'd be a worse than useless distraction, was the only one who picked up on it. Natalia was dodging a swing of Largo's axe, Sync had Tear in a hold and she was too busy struggling for freedom to cast. Asch's screams, half rage and half agony, were rather distracting.

Legretta was the one with a cool enough head to hold one of her guns to Asch's thrashing head and order them to put down their weapons and take off their armor or she'd shoot. Limited as he was he would die if that happened, and then Luke would die. Now, her presence was a surprise. Everyone had thought she hated Van, after what had happened to her brother. Apparently not.

It was when Guy and Natalia froze, knowing that if they didn't obey she'd shoot and knowing that if they did even worse would happen that Luke vanished from Guy's grip. Four fon slot seals? One each for Ion, Luke, Asch _and_ a reserve? Where on Auldrant had they gotten that many!

Of course, they'd had seven years to plan the capture of two people who were just that powerful, just as Asch and Luke had seven years to try to prevent their capture and Akzeriuth. They'd been playing catchup, and defense, when one never knew when the enemy would strike, was so much harder than offense.

Luke had barely noticed the seal, frantically trying to calm Asch down before he hurt himself.

"Surrender," Legretta repeated, and this time they obeyed.

Well played.

Now that the ambush was over Asch's quieting whimpers and Luke's murmurs of strained comfort became the center of attention. Luke had somehow gotten between Asch and Van's armor and had forced Asch's face into the crooks of his neck so he couldn't see Van. "Asch, I'm _here_." He wouldn't lie and say that everything was okay, and he didn't know what would happen. His voice was so very strong, to struggle against that despair.

Jade, Luke and Asch had joined Tear at the effectiveness level of utter novices, Guy and Natalia couldn't attack with those two in danger… At least Ion and Anise had escaped. If it weren't for the coincidence of Arietta's arrival that wouldn't have happened. "Don't hurt them," Natalia pleaded.

"Vandesdelca." Guy's voice was full of sorrow. "Don't do this."

All Tear could say was Van's name.

"Mystearica. Gailardia. Meryl."

"Hey." Sync poked Jade on the shoulder and Jade realized he was still holding his weapon. He dropped it: it was useless anyway, which was why none of them had bothered to tell him to disarm until now.

Natalia didn't seem surprised by the Meryl. Van must have tried to play that card already: Jade had been forced out of touch a bit as the fateful year drew closer and, since Luke was reasonably grown up and the both of them healthy, Asch didn't have the pull to insist on Jade's visits anymore.

"And you, Necromancer."

He was an afterthought. How _wonderful_.

"You're also planning to overthrow the score. After all, it's the death warrant of both of them."

"Both?"

"Luke is predicted in the seventh fonstone, Gailardia. 'The scion of Lorelei's power shall approach a Kimlascan city of fon machines seeking a way to purify the taint.' The seventh fonstone predicts the _extinction__of__mankind_, either by a disease or by the miasma. The words could be translated either way, which is rather convenient, now isn't it?"

Tear gasped.

"Tear." Reminded of her presence, Luke pleaded, "Could you put Asch to sleep, if they'll let you? He, he can't take this." Not the both of them in Van's grasp, hearing Van's voice.

Tear looked at Van. "I know the first fonic hymn perfectly well." Hearing Van say he was going to use that on him, Asch started to struggle again.

Luke kept him from hurting himself against Van's unyielding armor as best he could. "If you're going to, please hurry."

Van was quite a fast caster, on top of his other combat skills. Asch slumped, unconscious, and Luke as well.

"Humanity is doomed to destruction. The Score will win out, the future that the planet remembers _will__happen_. However, there is nothing to prevent a new future from being written, a new race and world from rising from the ashes." And suddenly everything started to make horrible sense. "Eldrant. Have you heard the myth of the promised land, the new world, that some say we will go to after death? It is the relic of that prophecy, before the Closed Score was successfully locked away from human knowledge. Yulia made her pact with Lorelei when the world was on the verge of destruction. The score contains the only way to save mankind from the miasma, from warfare over control of the future, from total annihilation. Auldrant _will_ die. Eldrant_must_ rise, and without memory particles there will be no score there, no prophecies to go to war over to control the fate of the human race. No Celsa. No Ispania. No Hod. No Akzeriuth. No miasma."

None of them had words yet.

Van continued. "The light of the sacred flame. The Luke fon Fabre born in ND 2000 was the vessel of Lorelei's power: its light could be seen shining through him. The one called Luke now is the scion of Lorelei. Scion. The word does not mean creation. It means offshoot, as a twig is part of a tree. The scion of Lorelei is part of Lorelei, a manifestation of it in our level of reality. A fonon sentience is a clump of the pure form of that fonon, pure enough to have its frequency instead of a unique one composed of different levels of contamination by the other fonons, that possesses a mind. The existence of Lorelei is not merely theoretical. One manifestation was sealed into the Key by Yulia and thrown into the core to enable the Planet Storm. Another has spent seven years pretending to be human."

What he admitted next galled him. "I hadn't interpreted it correctly when I created the replica. I had no idea of the true translation of the word scion. I myself gave Lorelei a foothold in this world, to rally you against me as its stolen memory, the Planet Score, forewarned us. Isn't it strange that 'Asch' should be so insanely dependant on the cause of his torment? Gailardia, you were able to harden your heart against a child before: what was so different about this one? Meryl, Natalia, why did you instantly become devoted to someone who you at first thought didn't care enough to remember you and then became such a burden on you and your love's time? Necromancer, Dist knew the original you. You've changed so dramatically. Tell me, when did it start?"

When he'd gotten to know Luke. No, the moment he saw him and was intrigued enough to ask to the replica about himself instead of just what he needed to know for the mission.

"Either Eldrant rises and the human race continues in another form, one composed of quasi-seventh fonons without memory particles, or Lorelei survives us. A replica world. Is that such a terrible thing? You know how replica data extraction works. They would not have the memories of their originals, but they would have their selves. Isn't that better than a dead world, one with only seven inhabitants?"

What could they say to that?

"You can't avert humanity's destruction. It's impossible. Our own nature in combination with the Planet Score's existence renders it inevitable regardless of the details. You_can_prevent Eldrant from succeeding. Eldrant was the reason Yulia forced Lorelei into that pact. She wanted a way for humanity to survive. There is no way but Lorelei's destruction, otherwise Lorelei itself wouldn't have admitted that it was the only way. And Lorelei cannot be destroyed without cleansing every seventh fonon, including those in the people that are currently alive."

Guy shook his head. "He's not like that. And if he's controlling us, why not you, and Sync? You would be more vulnerable than Jade and I are."

"I'm not sure he isn't." Van put the two of them down finally, looking at Luke like a poisonous snake. "The score would indicate that he truly wishes to save the human race and is unaware of his true nature. But then, it is Lorelei's memory, and could be painting him in a flattering light. What he did just now would indicate that he cares for his original. He could have escaped, or attempted to, and it didn't appear to cross his mind. However, can I trust my own memory, my own thoughts, when it comes to the creature that controls them as naturally as Undine does the seas?"

"What a clever argument." Jade had regained his mental footing after the shock of the sudden defeat and the pain that had come from the thought of Luke using them. "Advancing a hypothesis that could only be disproven if Luke were to help you bring about Eldrant. Or, in fact, since you argue that Luke is unaware, it wouldn't be disproven even then. If we entertain your idea, then you win. But such an obvious false rhetoric technique isn't going to work against a scientist. You have a hypothesis. Is there any way to test it? No? Then it's a tautology and not even worth examining.

"You think I haven't considered the idea that Luke was manipulating me? When he and Asch are destined by the Score to cause such devastation to my country, when Luke's very existence is my responsibility? You think I'm that stupid? Perhaps you're mistaking me for someone in your mirror. There would be no detectible difference between the world and one where you're correct. Therefore, the null hypothesis stands."

Everyone else but Guy was lost. Jade considered telling him to explain, but no. "That means we have no reason whatsoever to take your hypothesis into consideration. The facts that you're insane, trying to manipulate us, and we have no evidence but your word won't help either."

"I'd intended to capture Ion so someone you trust could read the seventh fonstone for you. That would show you that Eldrant is the only way to preserve the human race." So what would he do with them now, they wondered.


	9. Chapter 9

_Replaying Tales of the Abyss. Just got Jade's Soft Meanie (aka Tsundere) title & ran around to get materials for all the capacity cores available from Din's shop so I'd have them second playthrough - my original late-second-playthrough-with-most-titles save file was stolen with my last PS2. Decided I didn't really have any reason not to get some of the other exclusive stuff like Guy, Natalia & Anise's best armors while I was at it. _

_Also, the three percent regen accessory will make certain arena battles so much easier - looking at you, Jade. _

* * *

><p>"Luke? Please answer me, Luke! Oh, Luke, please be alright!" The familiar feeling of Natalia hugging him brought Luke back to awareness gradually. Her voice was strained, but familiar and safe.<p>

Suzanne might be his original's mother, but Natalia, although only eleven years older than him, was the person who Luke really saw as Mommy. Suzanne's illness and responsibilities as a duke's wife and king's sister kept her tired and drained, although she loved both her sons dearly.

"Na," his attempt was interrupted by a yawn. "Natalia, what, what happened?"

"Oh thank goodness." He could hear her relief in her voice and feel it in her relaxing grip. "Do you hurt? I can still use fonic artes without a weapon, and they won't care since all I would be doing is healing."

"I'm fine. Asch?"

"He's right here."

"Guy?" Natalia adjusted him in her grip a bit so Luke could see that Asch was on the other side of the same bed, Guy watching over him. "Why isn't he awake yet?"

"We thought we'd best wake you up first. Now then." And Natalia's eyes hardened. "Luke fon Fabre, what were you thinking?"

He didn't need to ask about what. "He needed me."

"He needed you to be safe! And instead you as good as hand yourself over to the man who created you solely in order to send you to your death! He's going to blame himself, you know he is, and…" Natalia lost hold of her anger, and the sadness and worry were far worse. Not to mention the disappointment in him.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't apologize to me, apologize to him. Because he'll try to reassure you it's not your fault and that conversation will hopefully help it sink in that it's not his either. Luke, we're captives now." Seeing Luke's look of horror she tried to reassure him. "It's not your fault, he would have gotten Asch no matter what you had done at that point. But… Well, if you had escaped and taken us we would have had a much better chance of getting him back, but only if he'd been able to endure captivity alone for long enough to be alive to rescue. I understand why you did it. I don't blame you, Luke. We were outnumbered and outmatched. It's just… I'm sorry." She tugged him tight. "We tried so hard for so long to keep this from happening to the both of you…"

"I don't think Asch is the only one who needs to be watched to keep them from making off with an unfair share of the blame. Natalia, you couldn't have kept him from coming here. He was the one that leapt before he thought." Jade was here too? "We're here, blame is pointless, although repeat mistakes should be avoided."

"Should I start trying to wake him up now?" Guy poked Asch gingerly from a safe distance. In this sort of situation a half-awake Asch might try to maul someone he thought was an Oracle solder who had come to drag him to the replication machine. It had happened even in Baticul.

"I'll do it," Luke murmured. Hopefully if the first thing that Asch saw was that Luke was reasonably okay things would go better than they might. He went to Asch, hugging him. Asch tensed, but only for a moment. Luke had pressed his cheek against Asch's, and that meant Asch's dreaming mind could tell that this wasn't a stranger, it was his other self by scent even if with his fon slots closed the other sense was closed off. "Asch," Luke coaxed.

The noise that came from him wasn't a whimper, but Asch knew that whatever he would wake up to would be horrible and didn't want to. Wanted to stay asleep, warm, and with Luke here.

"Asch, I'm sorry." He didn't want to do this to him. "Please wake up. Natalia and I need you."

For them, for them he would.

Only Luke, drawing back a bit, could see the horror on Asch's face when he realized his fon slots were sealed. "Look at me, Asch, I'm here! It hasn't happened again!" Luke had been separated from Asch while Asch was sealed like this and a captive of Van. "Please, look at me!" Don't get caught in the flashbacks! "Asch!"

"My he… Luke?" Asch's question was tentative.

"Who else would it be?" Luke managed a smile. "Natalia's here too, and Guy, and Jade. We won't let anything happen to you."

"What about you?" Luke was, after all, the one in far more danger.

Yet Luke only smiled. "We'll take care of you and you'll save all of us. I… Please don't worry about me, Asch. I hate when you're unhappy because of me. I hate that you're afraid all the time because if either of us dies I do. I hate that I make you so weak."

Asch shook his head. "It's not that you make me weak, Luke. Van did this to me, by tearing you away."

"But if it weren't for me, Jade said that you would have gotten used to it. Most survivors do."

"Luke, I didn't want to get used to it. Feel…" They were sealed. "You know what it felt like. I was empty, and I don't want to know what I would have let move in."

"Or you could have let them kill me, and then I could have come back." Luke put his hand on Asch's chest. "I can't stand it either. I should have run, but I couldn't leave you like that and I couldn't live without you. I don't mind if one of us dies. I don't mind going home. I'm your heart and I beat for _you_, Asch. Maybe, maybe I should have escaped and then if you'd killed yourself you would have been free, maybe…"

"Don't say things like that!" Asch said it first, but it was echoed by all present. "You may have been born from me, but you're not_just_ me. You're yourself, Luke, and I don't want to lose you. I don't want to see you like this. You're my heart, and if you're sad I'm sad."

"Excuse me, but it's easy to die for someone. Living is harder. If you're that devoted then promise each other you'll live for their sake and then let's move on, shall we?" The necromancer ignored the ache in his chest with the ease of long practice. He hadn't even known it was anguish for most of his life, and knowing didn't help much. Sorrow couldn't be made to stop hurting with calcium tablets the way heartburn could.

They nodded. Asch tucked Luke against him. It wasn't much shelter but it made him feel better. "Natalia."

"Oh, Asch…" She reached out and hugged them both. "I'm so sorry, I should have realized it was a trap." She should have known that Asch couldn't think clearly when Van was involved instead of trusting her love's judgment.

"I didn't either, and there's no point in regrets now, Natalia. Please." He didn't want to focus on self-blame.

"I shouldn't have expected you to. I should know better. I should have kept calm instead of letting my worry keep me from thinking. What sort of Queen hurls herself and her husband into danger like that?" She was also a year older than Asch, making her the mature one to the childish Luke and the sometimes erratic Asch.

"And I should have grabbed Luke from Jade and ran for it instead of just standing there." Guy wasn't happy with his performance either. "I'm sorry, Asch. Some bodyguard I am. Letting Van take you that time and now both of you. I just… froze. He's not the person I knew once, I figured that out a long time ago when he tried to use Largo against you, Natalia, but…" He shook his head. "I wanted to talk him out of it. I hesitated."

"Will you children please stop playing the blame game? He had seven years to plan this ambush, and he did it flawlessly. The only thing that could be considered to have gone wrong was Anise and I taking those fon slot seals, and it's not a disaster when he had more and it took out two of our combatants. Although if Anise hadn't been sealed she wouldn't have placed Ion's fate in Arietta's hands so quickly and Ion most likely would have been captured. Van has studied all of us, and he put us in a situation where we would react certain ways and those reactions suited him. It was tactical genius and even I was taken in by it. I 'should' have realized that the bridge repair crew was Van's force in disguise, among many other mistakes." Jade adjusted his glasses. "Except I did check, and the paperwork was accurate, the… We were frankly outmatched."

That failed to reassure.

"Not that this will happen again, of course," Jade assured them. "We know the weaknesses he used against us and can guard against them. Most of them, at least." Despite his attempts to wean them off each other… Perhaps having their fon slots synchronized hadn't been such a brilliant idea. Otherwise, over seven years of busy lives they would have been forced to gradually learn to endure temporary separation for longer and longer periods.

"Do you know what he's going to do?" Asch asked.

"Destroy Auldrant to create a new world without a Score, the Eldrant of ancient myth. He claims that the seventh fonstone describes humanity's end and that this is the only way for anything to survive." No, Jade was not kidding. "He seems to think that Luke is an avatar of Lorelei, intended to stop him, because creating Eldrant would destroy the planet's memory and put an end to him and the Score his pact with Yulia supposedly created."

"Destroy the world? That's insane."

"Avatar of Lorelei?" Asch wasn't anywhere near as surprised. He had been Van's captive, after all. He knew the man was mad. Or was that all of it?

"…I had actually had some thoughts along those lines myself," Jade confessed. "There are some very ancient texts that describe sentiences other than Lorelei taking physical form, and supposedly any collection of their fonon pure enough to have their frequency and large enough to be able to hold a mind will become a manifestation of the sentience. There are legends of a war in which the commander ordered his troops to fire hundreds of the same fifth fonon arte at an enemy king and that man's body became absorbed into a vessel of Efreet. Then the commander created a pact with Efreet and their monarch's remains slaughtered his people. Pre Dawn Age texts are rare and sometimes artes are hidden in them. This one seemed like it might contain an arte, so I was asked to investigate it and it stuck in my mine."

"But, Luke?" Guy asked. "I mean, you're right. He has Lorelei's fonon frequency and is entirely seventh fonons, but it's just… weird." Luke was Luke, just a kid (brother).

"The voice we hear." Asch's non sequitur drew curious looks. "He hears a voice during the headaches, remember? We decided not to mention it because the last thing we needed was our parents thinking he was crazy and using that as an excuse to get rid of him. The person who's speaking might be Lorelei. They say things like, 'my perfect isofons,' and so on." Why hadn't he told them this detail? "Hearing voices is bad enough. Hearing Lorelei's voice? You would have _known_we were crazy." Asch's sanity had already been up for debate, and Luke seemingly brain-damaged until they'd understood about replicas… Yes, that was something best kept secret.

"He's not me." Luke shook his head. "The person who talks to us. We're his perfect isofons, not himself. Like Asch and I. He doesn't mean to give us headaches, it just happens. He… It's an effort for him to. He's… It's like he's chained and it's an effort to get around them for… I don't really understand," Luke confessed. "But everyone says that Lorelei is all-powerful. He can't even really control himself."

"Didn't he call you 'fragment of my soul' once, when you were first working on controlling your power?" Asch reminded him.

"Um… Yes. I thought that was another metaphor. You know how songs have a lot of metaphors? He only talks, he doesn't sing, but he speaks in that sort of style," Luke explained to the rest of them. "He… I think he's lonely, and we're the only ones who can hear him. Or I am, Asch can through me. He always… like when Asch is trying to be romantic, Natalia. 'Rem in Sylph's embrace,' because you wear blue and your hair is yellow, like the sun in the sky? Titles, maybe. More flowery than sappy, but… I don't think there's much else besides us that makes him even a little happy, and when he touches us it hurts us." Luke felt terribly sorry for him.

"'Fragment of my soul' would seem to confirm that Luke is a manifestation or aspect of Lorelei." That was what Jade cared about at the moment. He'd mock Asch's attempts at being poetic later. "What have I told you about keeping things from your doctor?"

"It's not that we don't trust you," Luke started to protest.

"It's that_I_ don't. You have been a huge help to us, but you're an officer of Malkuth." And Asch was the future king of Kimlasca.

"Asch, don't blame it on that. You haven't even told _Natalia_. Why _are_you so serious about it, because you're not acting like it's why I thought it was?"

Asch sighed, giving up the pretence. "Luke, you still don't understand the lengths people will go to in order to manipulate the Score for their own ends. If you were known to be connected to Lorelei, you would be the most valuable prize on the planet. Forget Fon Master Ion, forget the seventh fonstone. If anyone can change this world's future it's you. Compared to that, the power of hyperresonance is _nothing_. It's not that I don't trust them, it's just that… anyone can be broken, and I didn't want them to be any more at risk than they already were. But the worst has happened, so it doesn't matter that there's almost certainly someone eavesdropping."

"Oh." Luke hadn't realized that. Everyone else had. "I thought it was because you didn't want to give them false hope."


	10. Chapter 10

_My, it's a week early instead of a week late!_

* * *

><p>"False hope?" Jade would like hope, period.<p>

"From what we can figure out, Lorelei's trapped in the core as a personality and can't manifest outside it. That might mean that a cluster of seventh fonons of the right type outside the core would become a manifestation of Luke, not Lorelei. Meaning that if the worst happened, another replica of myself might be Luke. I know replication doesn't work like that, so it's a long shot, but…"

"No, it might actually work. If the… It might work, it very well might, but there's no way to know for certain without trying it. We simply don't know enough about Lorelei's nature."

"It really might work? I thought Asch was…" Luke shut himself before saying that he thought Asch was being desperate and grasping at straws.

"It might. Especially if Lorelei were to intervene. How likely would that be?"

Luke and Asch exchanged glances. "He would want to, but I don't know if he would be allowed to," Asch answered.

"How likely is it?" Guy asked.

"There's no way of testing that except by testing it. However, this does explain a lot, for instance why Van couldn't just create a second replica. If Luke is Lorelei, he might be absorbing the fonons of any attempts into himself by reflex. Which means that perhaps…" Perhaps, now that both Luke and Asch were fon slot sealed, another replica might be made.

"Tell me you're not thinking what I'm thinking." That was one of Asch's _nightmares_.

"But another replica of Asch would be another manifestation of Lorelei, right? Wouldn't that be the last thing he would want?" Guy spoke up.

"Why are you asking me? My insanity is of a different variety. It's doubtful, though. The benefits of someone with hyperresonance he could control the way he could a programmed infant replica would be enormous, but an infant like that… The risk of the replica siding with Lorelei and Van not being able to detect it because programming has the side effect of concealing the replica's true personality would be enormous."

Jade shrugged. "It's a risk versus benefit calculation, and without truly understanding exactly what it is he wants Asch and his power for we have a problem. Why Asch and not Luke right from the beginning? A young replica is far more malleable than even such a disoriented and vulnerable young man. Unless… The stability problem, of course. Even Ion has trouble reading the score. Perhaps he thought that since so many of your replicas disappeared Luke would die at Akzeriuth just from using his power. Hyperresonance is nothing to be underestimated. But in fact, Luke's stability quotient is higher than most originals, even powerful seventh fonists."

And then Jade realized why. "The raw seventh fonons used to make replicas try to disperse, to return to the fon belt the exact same way your first replicas returned to you even without you pulling them, Asch. If Luke is Lorelei, then his fonons are already where the laws of fonology state they should be. Creating a replica is like trying to build a house on stilts, high above the ground. It can be done, but if anything goes wrong the house will crash to the ground and fall apart due to the attraction between second through fourth fonons. A manifestation of Lorelei, however, would be a house built on the ground as nature intends… Of course!" Eureka! "No wonder I could never duplicate your stability!"

They'd stopped worrying about Luke's stability years ago, since he was very clearly not going to fall apart, although they'd let others think that was a danger so Dr. Balfour's visits would be allowed by Kimlasca. That disinformation might have fooled Van as well.

"But a replica world would therefore have to have a sentience. In fact, since he would be converting the world's fonons of all other types into seventh fonons, that sentience would be the mind of the entire world. All of Eldrant would be its physical form. Individual people would still have their own minds, yes, due to frequency variations but the fact that pure fonons of any sort are almost impossible, even replicas quickly get third fonon contamination from breathing air, fourth from drinking water, and so on, is what causes the sentiences to manifest outside the fon belt so rarely. If Van detests Lorelei, how would he react to the idea that the sentience of the seventh fonon would end up the… the awareness of his entire world. The god, you could say." And Jade objected to that term greatly. "It might be a replica of Lorelei, but if you posit that a replica of Lorelei is Lorelei, then you see the problem."

Jade hated explaining things to people, but he needed to think and he didn't want to have to explain this to them later, so he was killing two birds by thinking aloud. He'd gotten up and started walking around the room while he thought awhile ago: walking made the blood flow to the brain better. Which explained a lot about Dist, in fact. The body relaxed when it sat down, and thinking was hard work, which explained why so few people did it.

His classmates at the military academy had been amazed that he didn't spend any time in the library studying. They were trying to do the mental equivalent of lifting weights while in a relaxing atmosphere: of course they were having a hard time getting fit! They tried to understand strategy while they were already half-asleep and eventually they fell asleep: he went for a walk while he thought about it, meaning he kept up the required physical fitness levels and, once again, killed two birds with one stone.

Pity the additional hours of free time daily had been taken up by Peony.

There were people who were far better at strategy than Jade was, as this proved, but he'd managed first in the class without really trying because the mark of a true genius was knowing how to approach things and figure out the little tricks like that.

Luke had been somewhat forced into that method by his physical training regimen, which meant that he was vague on names and dates but good at understanding concepts. "Luke's memory. A young replica, like a young child, won't remember the first few years of their life that clearly later on." That was why he was insisting Ion keep a journal. "They use short-term and mid-term memory, but not long-term. Luke, you don't remember much from your first three years, correct?"

"Not except things people keep reminding me of, or are in my journal, and I don't know if I'm remembering that or the reminder. Oh, and the things Asch was there for." Which was most of it, but that was sharing Asch's memories as opposed to Luke himself remembering.

"Why would a replica of Lorelei have a fallible memory?" Science wasn't about finding the answers, it was about finding the right questions. The real sound signaling a great leap forward, as Professor Nebilim had told him, wasn't 'Yes, that's it!' but 'That's funny…' "For that matter, why would Asch exist? The probability of a human being born with Lorelei's frequency naturally is, as I've said before, zero. Irrational numbers are like that. Eldrant is meant, according to Van, to be a world without the score, without the planet's memory… And here we have a manifestation of Lorelei with only the memories a human in his position should have. A manifestation that remembers only what is necessary to keep mind and body intact… If it was Yulia Jue that came up with this, then I take back about a third of what I have said about her."

"Oh, where's Tear?" Jade talking about her ancestress had reminder Luke about her. An excellent example of his point. "He didn't…"

"No, he wouldn't hurt his sister," Guy answered. "Or I hope he wouldn't. He didn't act like he was going to. He was going to give both of us separate rooms, but I insisted on staying with you guys." Guy wasn't going to trust Van not to do something weird to Asch and Luke out of his sight, and Van had been willing to demonstrate to Guy that he could be trusted in hope that this might remind Guy of who Van had been once.

"Thank you." Luke would have gone up to him but he was being held down by Asch and Natalia.

Asch took a deep breath. "Well, it's not a good idea to plan out loud when we're almost certainly being watched." Although he wanted to get started on getting out of here right away.

"I quite agree," Jade murmured. "Especially since Van's quest for vengeance is only justified by saving _a_world." A replica world was better than nothing. "Saving it from the cause of Auldrant's downfall, the entity whose memory binds us all." Lorelei. So if Luke really was an aspect of Lorelei?

The fonon sentience that had given Van such a cursed fate, in a convenient, human size? In a body that could feel pain, and plenty of it?

Or would Van prefer to inflict anguish? The _true_way to hurt Luke was obvious: the way to Luke's heart was through Asch.

Jade consoled himself by remembering that that Van considered Lorelei a heartless monster. So any pain Luke felt on Asch's behalf would be a lie if Luke was Lorelei, and if Luke wasn't Lorelei, then why torment him? Especially when it would alienate Asch, and Van still seemed to need Asch. "But if Luke is incapable of serving as a _planet__'__s _memory? His memory is imperfect, not total recall of every detail of his life, from beginning to end." An equal of Lorelei, that could serve in Lorelei's place but could not produce a Score? "Still, if the Score as we now know it was only created by Yulia's pact with Lorelei?" He shook his head. "Too many variables." Now, if he was in Yulia's position, and the world really was going to end and there was some way to ensure there was still a future, he would have left hints. He would have arranged things so that the people who might possess free will would act in a way that was good for the plan, and influence others.

He didn't mention that Eldrant truly might be Yulia's plan, and Vandesdelca's role in Hod's destruction had been _intended_to make him hate this world, be willing to embrace a plan that would destroy it.

So what was Tear's purpose, then?

When she had crossed Jade's path because she'd tried to kill her own brother, did he really have to ask? She'd grown attached to Luke quickly, which was quite convenient, now wasn't it? A descendant of Yulia to bear the guilt of destroying the old world, a descendant of Yulia to guide and guard the new.

When he looked at it that way, as though their Scored lives had been set up like dominos, to ensure that they would crash into Luke and influence him appropriately? Even Van had been the one to create Luke to begin with. Since Luke's existence was not in the Score, everything would have been ruined if Van hadn't wanted to… do whatever it was he wanted Asch for badly enough to create a replica to take his place. Hence the need to make sure he was greatly motivated. What would he want that badly? "My my my, of course. How obvious."

"What is it, Jade?" Luke wondered.

"He wants Asch to kill Lorelei. Only perfect hyperresonance would do the trick. No Lorelei, no Score. Yet, would there still be a need to destroy the planet, in that case? I'm sure he wants to. They would have made sure of it." Jade leaned back. "I wonder what sort of person Yulia was? I know what sort of person the two of you are, that might give me some idea of what Lorelei is like. The two of you do share a _few _traits, although some of it can probably be blamed on 'House Fabre's very stupid genes.'"

"Jade! Don't talk about Asch and Luke that way!" Natalia straightened up in order to put her hands on her hips and glare at him.

"Oh? Pardon me, I was just quoting Asch."

Natalia sniffed, looking unusually haughty. "I don't think we can expect a rescue," she said, changing the subject.

"Not without adequate intelligence," Jade agreed, a little disappointed when no one played straight man and let him follow that up with a comment about the lack of intelligence both about Van's forces and in the general population. "If Legretta is also loyal to Van, that leaves a handful of officers that would be able to fight through the god-generals." Arietta was a wild card, of course. She'd almost killed herself after the original Ion had died: he'd seen her as a pet, but she'd adored him. With her mother dead? And Van was her friend, not to mention the fact she would refuse to fight Sync. She would protect Ion, but that was really all she could be relied on to do.

It was an interesting tactical problem, or so he would have said if anyone else had to deal with it. It was certainly less amusing when he was the one who had people he seemed to care about in a dangerous situation.

At least, he consoled himself, Peony was well-protected and Dist could be relied on to make sure they kept Nephry out of it, for instance by being very vocal about how little Jade cared for her. Van couldn't afford to alienate him, with his access to Belkend (hopefully) cut off.

Yet he couldn't assume that Van hadn't spent all this time working to eliminate his own vulnerabilities as well as pick a time to strike not while they were weak, but in a way that would let him make them weak.


	11. Chapter 11

_Legacy __of __Kain_ paraphrase. _Legacy __of __Kain_ is an awesome series if you're interested in the whole prophecy thing and how people deal with it, by the way.

* * *

><p>"<em>I <em>_refuse __to __believe __that __my __feelings __are __dictated __by __the __Score_," she remembered herself thinking. The man was a criminal, even though her brother had chosen to side with him, tried to use the cover of that battle in Northern Chesedonia to capture the Necromancer.

Then she'd discovered that her brother had insisted on going on that mission, even knowing he was Scored to die there. Wanting to try to see if it was possible to defy it. Because if he could live, even for a few days, then maybe there was hope for Auldrant, even though Vandesdelca claimed, knew, the Score was absolute.

Drop a pebble into a rushing river, and the current would just move around the obstruction. History, Auldrant, could not be redeemed.

Which was why she had been unable to kill him that day. Which was why she had fallen in love with him, even though he had been trying to keep her from doing so, in an ironic way that had made him laugh at himself, knowing it was pointless. Lorelei was cruel, especially in its 'kindness' towards Yulia's heirs.

It was why she had trained Tear for him: he'd had little use for spies, when he knew what the Score foretold and could predict what the Order would do about it. No, her main use to him had been making sure that her sister would be able to protect herself, stay alive long enough to see reason, hopefully. What reason there was in this mad world?

Damn that Asch for setting all of this off, for separating him from her. Legretta couldn't take her place, not when they both knew her love was hollow, false. Just the path laid out for her in the planet's memory, the path she had and would take.

So she stood here by General Grants' side, listening to his sister (who knew _nothing, _nothing at all of what he had gone through) argue with him (which was pointless, every word she said just highlighted her ignorance) and wished it was real. Wanted to tell Tear the truth. Yet she supposed she had enough affection for Van's little sister, enough fellow-feeling for a fellow woman with an older brother doomed to die because of the Score, that she remained silent. For her student's sake.

Yet mostly for Van's. He'd wanted Tear's innocence preserved. Even now, Tear honestly thought Mohs only wanted the best for Auldrant? Legretta's stony face hid the fact that she honestly didn't know whether to laugh, cry or start shooting. Yet she stood here, by Van's side, trying to lend him what support she could. Even though her will, both their wills, were so little in the face of the Score. All their strength, and bullets could not wound Lorelei. They needed Asch's power.

That was the only possible way to save Auldrant, wasn't it? To destroy Lorelei, the planet's memory. And they had a way to test if it worked, if Asch's power could do it. Yes, it would kill Asch as well, perhaps, but he was Scored to die anyway. Why shouldn't he want to destroy the Score on his way out?

If it was Legretta in his position, she would do it. Her heart had already been taken from her: the hearts of all of Auldrant were Lorelei's playthings, not humanity's to give to each other as they saw fit.

Even if she and Van died, their replicas…

Would be free to love each other or not love each other.

Free to never suffer such a hopeless, sadistically-inflicted longing.

Because at least there, it could be _real_.

* * *

><p>"Oooooh, it's just like being a trainee all over again! I'll kill that bastard!" Anise cursed, Tokunaga taking her frustrations out on a couple of the beasts of the Rugnica Plains.<p>

"Anise, don't talk that way about Sync," Arietta said primly, sitting on top of one of her brothers while another tumbled around with Baby Ion. It was nice to hear Ion's voice laugh so happily as they played. Sync was naughty, but he was still one of Ion's babies, and he'd just done what Van had told him to. Van had taken him in, so Van was to Sync as Arietta's mommy was to Arietta.

Thinking of her mommy made her grip her doll tighter.

"Arietta, how would _you_feel if you were weak and useless and you couldn't protect _your_Ion? I don't have friends like yours to help me! And your Ion could kill the bastards who tried to use him himself, I've got him, and he just says yes to everyone and everything if I don't stand up for him!" Oooh, it made her so mad!

"Don't be silly, Anise. My friends are your friends." For Baby Ion's sake. "I wouldn't let just anyone protect Baby Ion, you know." She'd tried leaving one of her sisters to protect Baby Ion, but while they all thought he was a dear little cub, they weren't going to listen to a baby when he told them not to attack people, especially when they were _really_asking for it the way Mohs always did. "We'll just have to find Dist."

"Yeah, he can take this stupid fon slot seal off me, and then I'll beat the crap out of them!" Yes!

"Anise, don't curse. It's vulgar and you're setting a bad example for Baby Ion," Arietta said primly.

"Come on, Arietta, he should learn curse words. He needs to tell Mohs what he really thinks of him instead of being such a pushover all the time." Anise finished off the last one with an uppercut to the jaw and jumped down off her Tokunaga before it reverted to travel size, the same size as Arietta's doll. "And the new god-general isn't going to be any help; she's a goody-two-shoes." Van's little sister, one of Yulia's heirs: clear favoritism. Sure, Anise had risen through the ranks because of a few lucky breaks (and being willing to dare to sit by Dist and let him yammer on at her), but that had just made her aware of how unfair the system was. Even leaving out the fact that if the Score said you weren't going to get promoted, then you wouldn't. No matter how much you needed the higher pay grade that was _supposed _to come with the work you were actually doing.

Grr, stupid Mohs!

And Van, of course.

She and Jade were supposed to rendezvous in St. Binah if anything happened, but if Jade had been fon slot sealed, then he wasn't very likely to escape, and from what Ion had told her, Jade would be really vulnerable to a curse slot, especially now. He didn't have any of his own seventh fonons to try to argue with the memories that were being dragged up: some people were conscious to some degree while a curse slot made them do things, and it did depend on the strength of the caster (Sync was weak for a Fon Master), but Jade was no seventh fonist at all.

So it really wouldn't be hard to get information out of him. Well, not if they did it that way. The colonel would probably laugh at them if they tried pain or anything like that. Right?

Right, absolutely right. Nothing was going to happen to the Colonel. Dist wouldn't let it, for one thing. And Van should still need him, especially with what had happened to the researchers in Belkend after Duke Fabre discovered what they'd help Van do.

Apparently he'd decided that much better a hated enemy from Malkuth, even one who embarrassed his forces again during the skirmishes in Northern Chesedonia three years ago, than traitors from his own city. Who had betrayed their own lord and experimented on his heir.

Rumor had it two of them had survived to flee to Sheridan, but despite the fact their rivalry had been legendary up until then, the fontech researchers had closed their ranks. Of course, Van had his ways…

Still, now Van had Jade as well as Nebilim's fontech data to bribe Dist with. He'd probably do anything if Van promised him both of them on a silver platter. Maybe with the Colonel all tied to it with ribbons in his mouth. The thought made Anise giggle.

Still, she couldn't get captures, not when she had Emperor Peony's letter. Oh, what was she supposed to do? With Arietta's help, they could try to make a run for Baticul, but she'd be dead weight. They could try to shadow Van and his cronies, looking for a chance to meet up with Dist (Dist was easy to manipulate, the trouble was that he couldn't keep his big mouth shut) or bust them out of there, but that ran the risk of getting caught, especially when she was dead weight and Arietta wasn't going to fight Sync or Van. Not unless one of them did something on the level of killing her mommy, but Anise couldn't really think of anything else.

Come on, what should she do?

* * *

><p>If Jade was here, he'd have probably said something along the lines of, 'Well, this is awkward.'<p>

Neither of them really wanted to be here. Natalia because Largo was Asch's enemy, and poor little Luke's, and Largo because his daughter had been taken from him, and his wife. Meryl was as dead as Sylvia and Badaq, or perhaps that was what he'd had to tell himself to keep going, to stop himself from trying to charge into the palace and rescue her again, get thrown in jail again and killed this time. The only reason he'd been released before was that the Scorers had been keeping an eye on things, since he was Scored to join the Order, not to die.

So here they were, sitting in opposite corners of a carriage that felt both empty and far too small. It made Natalia once again wonder if this man could really be her father. The size of him, for one thing! Even if Natalia's own nanny had sworn to it, and sworn that Meryl's parents had been in love, that there was no way Sylvia had cheated on her husband, it still boggled the mind just a bit.

Jade had said that she should try to manipulate him, but that was typical of the Colonel. No, Natalia wasn't going to presume on any relationship that had been severed so traumatically, even if through none of their own actions. Hadn't the poor man suffered enough? As for appealing to any desire to someday meet his grandchildren, the idea was ridiculous. The relationship would have to be kept secret, even if Asch was right, that the people of Baticul and Belkend loved her enough it wouldn't matter. Still, her father, how would he react? Her real father, she meant. Ingobert. Yet what kind of father would send her fiancé to die, even for the good of Kimlasca? Yes, her country was important to her, but a war? What prosperity could be built on the deaths of ten thousand of their own citizens?

Still, if Mohs ever tried to use it to blackmail her, at least she already knew the truth. There wouldn't be any shock, she would be able to stand firm and unwavering.

She was no coward like her mother, to just give up her baby and then kill herself instead of fighting to get the child back. Van was _not_going to get away with whatever he had planned for Luke! Absolutely not.

And if that meant she and her father, she and _both _her fathers had to be enemies, then so be it. They were grown men, they could make their own choices. She had a fiancé, a country and a baby, not that Luke was really a baby anymore, to look after. They could look after themselves, and if they didn't take care Largo, at least, would soon resemble an oversized pincushion, if she had her bow.


	12. Chapter 12

_Sorry for the delay. Health and such. Going to aim for weekly updates to get this fic finished, but no promises._

_Am also ticked Bandai cancelled Jade's manga instead of Asch's. I bet you can guess which character I prefer. Which is why I torture him, I swear._

* * *

><p>"Commandant…"<p>

"You know I don't have that title, Legretta."

"Van," she corrected herself, hating the happiness she felt at permission to address him by his first name… Which he hadn't given, and she knew she should resist this false emotion! "Grants," Legretta said firmly. Except that was a pseudonym. "Sir Fende." There.

"It appears that Gailardia has returned my sword to me."

She heard the wry sadness in his voice and steeled herself not to show any sympathy, not to want to slap that ignorant boy. Van wouldn't want that, even when Guy was an insensitive, traitorous, miserable excuse for a protector, guarding Lorelei's avatar, the being that had decreed his own family's extermination instead of the boy his family had been honor-bound to protect for two millennia… Although the Gardios' family's duty had also been decreed by Lorelei, hadn't it? And Lorelei had decreed when they would fail in that duty, and Van would be tortured and forced to destroy his homeland.

Still, why was he making an issue of this now? What could she call him? "Are you being deliberately irritating, sir?"

"Is it helping, Legretta?"

"…No, I'm afraid not, Sir," she was forced to confess. Anyone else who dared to tease her would earn her wrath, but the fact he was putting effort into helping her try to free herself, even after all this time, even knowing that it was pointless, that she didn't have the strength in her to defy Lorelei? And she wanted him to tease her, wanted to see him smile. Wanted him to be proud that she'd figured it out, if nothing else.

"Forgive me. I should have known it wouldn't, that there was no point to this experiment in the first place. I shouldn't have given you the impression that it might be possible for you not to fall in love me. That I expected the impossible from you, that you might be letting me down if you didn't manage to resist the Score and assassinate me." He sighed. "Love and fear of a score of death are the two things that can drive the sheep to resist the Score, even after all this time. Resist it, but never win against it. Perhaps I wanted proof that I was doing the right thing." If even Legretta, motivated by both love for her dead brother and score-bound love for him, knowing he wanted her to hate and kill him, couldn't do it? "If you can't kill me, Legretta, then what happened to your brother… No, it won't be the beginning. The experiments on Hod were the beginning." Of the millions of deaths Van would cause.

Including her own.

"I'm aware of that, sir."

Van sighed. "And I just said that I wouldn't… There's no point in irritating or provoking you." Making this any more difficult than it had to be. "Were their responses what we anticipated?"

"The Grand Maestro's was, of course." Mohs would do anything for the seventh fonstone, which was scored to turn up as a result of the actions of the Scion of Lorelei at Akzeriuth. He would have ordered Tear sent there, despite the risk of ending the Yulian bloodline, because a Yulian was supposed to find it and he hadn't expected the traitor to be willing to deal with him. "King Ingobert added another clause: he wants Natalia and Asch kept together until the appointed time." To deliver them to Akzeruith.

"Of course: better a heir born out of wedlock than one with no royal blood at all," Van had no intention of delivering them to Choral Castle, where they could be recaptured, for the planned ceremony and without the Fon Master, the only member of the Church authorized to perform royal weddings, he couldn't arrange a ceremony himself.

He'd planned to offer Asch that one small thing. He'd planned to offer him so much, for the sake of all that Van would never have. Even if Natalia's love was no more real than Legretta's, at least Asch had the delusion that it was true. At least he had that comfort.

"This way, he'll not only have Natalia as a symbol," the grieving mother, "but he can justify putting her on the throne as regent for her son. Not to mention keeping her imprisoned." So she couldn't speak the truth about Akzeriuth. "Remind him that if we see any troops in Akzeriuth or the Deo Pass…" That Natalia would die, although Van was sure the reminder was unneeded. Ingobert wouldn't dare defy the Score any further, not when not only was the girl he'd thought was his daughter's life on the line but also the promised prosperity of his nation. Van nodded, then grew serious. This would be the difficult one. "And Malkuth?"

Legretta smiled: Van would like this, at least. "They sent us a rather interesting package…"

* * *

><p>Anise pulled the cap down tighter over her head. Hey, she should take advantage of being able to pass for a boy while she still could, right? It was just a matter of time.<p>

(Anise tried not to think of the people in Grand Chokmah who had mistaken Ion for her pretty sister when Jade took Ion on an incognito tour of the city.)

Even if Jade couldn't make it to St. Binah, his bosses had still known that was where they were supposed to meet up if anything happened. She'd expected to run into a lot of Oracle knights here because of that, since the Order had the best spies (if Anise said so herself). She'd been planning to sneak in, ambush one and interrogate him, but St. Binah was really pathetically supplied with dark alleys compared to Daath.

Oracle soldiers, too. She couldn't find _any_. It was starting to make her really worried, because they had to be here somewhere and if she couldn't spot them, that meant the Special Operations God-General had to be in charge. And _no one _knew who was currently heading Special Ops, not even _her_. Mohs didn't trust her enough to tell her.

She couldn't find any of Mohs' minions or Van's, and the longer it took her to spot them the better they had to be, and the higher the chances they'd spot her first.

"Really, Anise, don't be so nervous!" Arietta scolded her. "My friends aren't the only ones who can smell fear, you know."

Anise might have grumbled and wished she could tell Arietta to shut up, but she had a point. Skulking around would just make her more suspicious, huh. "Wait, where are you going?"

"To talk to people, of course," Arietta said, turning around to look at Anise in puzzlement.

"Look, Areitta, you might know about stalking animals, but…"

"Anise, I know what I'm doing," Arietta said, and sniffed, turning around and walking right towards the base's entrance. "You know I wouldn't put the babies in danger."

"…Yeah, I guess," Anise admitted, and followed. Even if they'd left Ion on one of Arietta's birds really high in the air, Dist could still get up there, so the sooner they got back to Ion the better.

Areitta walked right up to one of the guards by the door. "Hello, my name is God-General Arietta the Wild, and this is God-General Anise the Puppeteer. We're here to retrieve God-General Dist the Rose."

Anise stared as the guard saluted. "We've been expecting you, ma'am." The two of them opened the door, and Anise and Areitta were led into the meeting room.

"Mmph!" Dist greeted them, or tried to, through the gag on his mouth. He shook with outrage at the reminder that he was tied up, and his chair rocked on its short, stubby legs.

"Oh hello, Anise. I'm sorry my brother caused you trouble again," Nephry said from the chair at the head of the table, the mayor and his son flanking her.

"Oh, it's alright, your highness," Anise said, turning on the cute little girl charm.

"Your _Imperial Majesty_," the younger one corrected her. Anise could tell right away that he was a stuffed shirt.

"What? I thought it was 'your Imperial Highness?'"

"Only after the wedding and before the coronation," Nephry told her, rolling her eyes. "Apparently I'm a duchess now, too." Instead of the Mayor of Keterberg: the native nobility had been stripped of their titles when Malkuth conquered it for various reasons, most of them traceable to the Order. "And yes, it is your highness in public. Supposedly, I'm a duchess and concubine." Like Peony's mother. The concubine part, not the duchess part. "Here out of concern for my poor lost brother…"

"Mmph?" Dist sounded puzzled.

"We had Fon Master Ion marry us while he was in Grand Chokmah."

"Mmph?"

"Well, I _would _have invited you if we didn't have to keep it secret and you hadn't _gone to work for the Order." _Of all things. "And I was going to tell you after I captured you, but I thought I'd tell you what we'd decided about Jade first and then you kept making so much fuss about the dress. Honestly, Saphir, we're not eight anymore." She sighed. "The more immature you act, the more I worry about whether or not it's really alright to let you marry my brother. I know he's mellowed, but you're my friend and I don't want you to end up…" A victim of horrible experiments or domestic abuse.

Dist hurriedly started to protest that he was mature, really, and she didn't need to worry about him and dear Jade!

"Dress? What dress?"

"Oh, since Peony made my wedding dress, and one for Natalia," the two of them had been writing to each other ever since Jade told Peony that Natalia shared his interest in costuming. Apparently Natalia had come up with some rather elaborate ideas for disguising Luke and Asch if it ever became necessary, "He made one for Jade."

"So Dist was upset on the colonel's behalf?" That didn't sound right to Anise.

"No, he's upset that Jade got the dress." Nephry looked up to the fon belt, imploring Celsius to give her strength. "I'll write Peony to make one for you, don't worry." She looked at Anise, another friend of Saphir's. Perhaps misery loved company. "It's just time the two of them settled down. And it's not right for a younger sibling to be married first, but the Fon Master couldn't stay there for very long…" They hadn't been able to locate and capture Dist in time without making Jade suspicious. "I'm not sure it's safe, but Peony thinks it will do Jade some good, and since Saphir still wants to go through with it…"

Dist nodded hard enough to rock the chair again.

"I can't just let Saphir waste his life pining after Jade." Obsessing about the time before Nebilim had died, when they had at least worked together. "Hopefully, either Peony's right and it will work out, or the reality will…" let Saphir face reality and realize that her brother was all wrong for him. If that was reality.

"So," Nephry summed up, leaning forward and resting her elbows on the table as she examined the two female god-generals, "Saphir's agreed to help us – you have, yes?" More nodding. "In exchange for my brother's hand in marriage."

"Wait, you can _do _that?" Anise was amazed.

"It's perfectly legal." Nephry smiled primly. She was the head of Jade's family now, after all. The Curtiss family was honored to share a member with the Empress' line.

"I mean, you think you can get away with that?" With _the colonel_?

Nephry's little smile deepened. "Either of them can initiate divorce proceedings in three years, so Jade can't try to make Saphir miserable enough to break it off before them." Dist snorted. "Three years gets us past when the war would have ended, and in exchange, Saphir will give up creating another replica of Professor Nebilim and will help us stop that poor man." Who had suffered because of her brother's cruel invention and her husband's cruel family.

So it all worked out happily, didn't it? Unless your name happened to be Jade.

* * *

><p><em>I recommend reading the Peony Gaiden short manga, I believe it's scanlated by Wings of an Angel. It's interesting to think about a society where all marriages are arranged marriages: everyone gets their score read on their birthday and apparently they can get told 'hey, you're marrying this guy,' if it hasn't been set up already.<em>

_Nephry had to marry the mayor of Keterberg because the Score said so. So Jade has no right to complain about marrying someone because she said so. A modern, Western reader would expect Jade to be outraged about being told to marry someone he doesn't like, but Auldrant's culture really doesn't seem to work like that. Even Jade is probably just going to complain about it being _Saphir_ of all people and go along with it. See why Van thinks it's so very creepy and infected everyone's brains? Even if this is politics, not the Score._


	13. Chapter 13

When Tear was pushed back into the seemingly-abandoned house, Guy, Luke and Jade were all in the women's half & Natalia wasn't. Luke was humming to himself loudly as the three of them played cards. Van and his allies had established a base in a ghost town near the Deo Pass, one of many that had been abandoned when the local vein of ore was played out. Akzeriuth was the best source, of course, but for centuries whatever nation didn't control it at the time had an incentive both to find another source and to create a potential base to use to retake it.

Luke waved hi to her, still humming. Guy looked sheepish. Jade just smiled to himself as he drew another card. "What's going on?" she asked them.

Instantly, Luke covered his ears, increasing the loudness of the hum. Guy's wincing was less dramatic. Jade'd smile deepened.

Guy glanced to Jade, to see if he was willing to explain, because then at least Guy wouldn't have to say it, no matter how Jade put it. No help there: Jade was interested to see how Guy would explain this. "Well, Asch and Natalia… They've been in love with each other since they were children. This is the first time they've gotten anything like privacy on this trip," since this house was built into the wall of this canyon, and the men's room was the one further back, dug into the cliff. "So, um, well yeah." He was blushing as he tried to scratch the back of his head innocently. "Especially since with the fon slot seal, Asch's needed Luke to stay with him…"

"And Jade wouldn't poison me," Luke stopped humming to complain. "I can't be awake in there when they're, ugh, it's worse than thinking about Mother and Father! I'm going to have to sleep in that bed!"

"I quite agree: Natalia's quite a pretty young lady, if you like that sort of thing, and the last thing you need is to become attracted to your mother figure," Jade mused. "Apparently King Ingobert and Duke Fabre have been looking the other way for quite some time, probably for the sake of a legitimate heir. If what Largo says is true, and Natalia confirms his story, Natalia's children will not be rightful heirs of the kingdom of Kimlasca-Lanvaldear. And the Score itself says that only a redhead can hold the throne." Natalia's public works projects and ties to the common people had let her discretely ask a midwife about the counting method, but both Natalia and Asch were very active teenagers who hardly seemed content with only a few days a month.

Guy nodded, because thinking about politics was much better than, well. "Asch has the true blood-crimson. That's why they were engaged as soon as he was born – or that was why everyone thought they were engaged. It's not a good idea for first cousins to marry: a lot of people are worried their children will be insane, especially after what happened to Asch." He'd gone berserk whenever anyone tried to take Luke away, early on, and then the entire city had watched him go berserk in the arena, when Luke and Natalia were both killed by those illusions the arena's master had summoned, even knowing they'd be revived afterwards. Luckily, Guy was fast enough with the life bottles, and Natalia had been able to keep Asch healed while Luke watched his back until they won the fight, at which point the two of them had sat on him until his head cleared.

Jade cleared his throat loudly. "My own parents are first cousins."

"So we should be very afraid. Got it." Luke's face was pale.

"Hmm." If Luke was willing to listen to what was going on around him enough to talk back to Jade, "Was that a growl I just heard, or do you think…"

"Gah!" Luke cried, and dropped down under the table to curl up into a ball. The sound of humming redoubled.

"Colonel, that was uncalled for," said Tear, putting her hands on her hips.

"He's physically seventeen, he has to learn the facts of life sometime." Jade spread out his hand on the table. "And I was speaking about the Curtisses. That's why they were so eager to adopt, even a Ketran believed to be friends with the wrong son of the Emperor."

"Why'd they get married, anyway? The military families don't have to worry about blood or inheritance _that _much." Guy might not have taken his place as Duke of Hod openly yet, but he'd still learned from Pere what he would need to know.

"It was Scored."

"Oh, right." Guy nodded.

"Of course, that begs the question of why it was Scored. The two of them do seem genuinely happy, but I'm sure it was a relief to the rest of the family when the Scorer assured them there would be no inconvenient monstrous children. Except for the adopted one, of course."

"Right," Guy said, rolling his eyes a bit. He'd gotten to know Jade and didn't think he was _that _bad. Not compared to Duke Fabre.

"Guy?" Tear asked, hesitating before sitting down in the chair Luke had abandoned.

"What is it, Tear?" he asked, sounding a little more gentle than usual. He guessed he still had a 'talking to children' voice from dealing with Luke, and seeing Van again and finding out all that he was really up to had hit Tear hard. He remembered how he'd felt about it, all the confusion and everything, so it was hard not to feel sympathetic.

She was kind of cute, too, or she would have been if she wasn't six years younger than him.

"What about… my family? I never got to meet my parents. Van didn't talk about them much," and then he had left again when she was nine, and she'd heard such awful things.

"Well…" Guy looked to the side. "You could ask Van about them now. I didn't really see them much, except for sitting with everyone else at formal banquets and stuff."

"But weren't you Van's friend?" she asked him.

"Yeah, but." It was clear that Guy was desperate for a subject change. "Do you want to play cards? I think Jade broke Luke, so I need someone to play with."

"Aren't you playing with Jade?"

"Well, yeah, but he always wins. So Luke and I were playing for second place," Guy explained as though it made perfect sense. It might, if your sense of logic had been forced to adapt to a universe that contained Colonel Jade Curtiss. "You could take Luke's hand, or Jade could deal you in?"

"You let him deal?"

Yeah, from the expression on Guy's face, he knew that was asking for it, but, "If we don't, he gets inventive. More inventive, I mean."

Tear decided she didn't want to imagine that. "Luke's voice is really good, isn't it?" Otherwise, Tear would have found someone humming loudly like that annoying by now and started kicking him where he lay under the table to get him to be quiet or find some real earplugs, the big baby.

Guy and Jade both nodded. "Makes sense, doesn't it? Since he's Lorelei's isofon and everything."

"He can use the fonon to enhance his voice and range. Apparently shortly before they became desperate enough to call me in, he broke every window and wineglass in the city," Jade said, taking Guy's hand. "Let's just start a new game, shall we?"

"Luke did?" Tear had heard Van's explanation of what the two of them were and what they were supposed to do, but it was still a shock to think of Luke as capable of that kind of destruction.

"It was Asch's fault," Guy told her. "I'm sure of it. When he's set his mind on something, it's not a good idea to get in his way." The fact they were sort of friends now didn't make Asch any less of a vicious little bastard. Of course, Guy's first real friend had been Van. He sure knew how to pick them, huh? "If they hadn't been worried that the girders that keep Baticul in the air would be next, they'd never have let Asch have his way. Not with the Necromancer. He was only ten."

"Only ten," and forcing her brother to let him go, blackmailing his own father and a king with that destructive holy power and making sure that Luke was properly looked after. It made Tear think of her own brother, before he'd… No, before she'd found out the truth. He still cared for her, it hadn't been a lie, but that just made it harder. He was her brother, and he loved her, and she had to stop him.

A cute little yawn came from the direction of Tear's bed, and Fluffy poked his cute little blue head up and looked around. "Where's Master?" the adorable little thing asked, worried.

Guy pointed down under the table.

"Over here, Fluffy," Tear called.

"Master, Master, are you okay?" Fluffy asked, bouncing up and down a bit from nervousness. He tugged at Tear's skirt. "Is Master okay?"

Tear picked him up and snuggled the poor little guy. "He'll be fine, Fluffy. It's just… grown-up stuff." Stuff Tear didn't consider herself old enough for anyway, although apparently Natalia had been, um, for awhile. Tear's face was as red as Luke's hair, and there was no way she was giving the talk to a baby cheagle.

Mieu made a little frown, puzzled. "But I thought Master wasn't a grown-up yet either."

"Um, well, that's why he's under the table," Tear explained, after frowning to herself in a way Guy thought was pretty cute while she tried to think of what to say.

"Oh. Then I should be with Master, right?" If under the table was where cubs should be. Mieu jumped back down off Tear's lap to snuggle up with Luke.

Luke stopped humming long enough to say, "Guy, could you toss me the pillows?"

"Sure thing, Luke. Want me to spread a blanket over the table too?"

"Thanks, Guy. You're the best." Too bad they only had enough pillows for a one-person fort. Well, one person and one cheagle. Otherwise he'd invite Guy in.

Guy chuckled. "Do me a favor and don't let Asch hear you say that."

"Let me help you with those, Guy."

When Luke and Fluffy were all settled in, Jade asked, "Now, what card games do you know how to play?"

"Just Go Fish." She'd played it with her grandpa sometimes.

"Why don't we teach you a few more?" Guy offered. They could be here for quite awhile before Asch stuck his head out to grab Luke. He might be okay without him for awhile, with Natalia there to keep him distracted, but he couldn't fall asleep without him there, not like this.

* * *

><p>It was three hours before Asch opened the door. He looked around carefully and made a hand signal to Guy. All clear?<p>

Guy nodded. All clear. He held a finger to his lips and looked at Jade and Tear.

When Asch beckoned, all of them went into the back room.

The bed and floor were covered with pieces of white fabric. Fabrics, rather: silk, lace… "Thank goodness for Emperor Peony," Natalia said quietly, after Asch closed the door. "Thank you for cutting yours up for us, Jade."

Jade adjusted his glasses. "Oh? What's this?"

Asch handed Jade something by way of explanation.

Oh? What would he need white string for… "My my my, a strangling cord? You've been busy, haven't you."

"Tear, I made both of us lassos," Natalia told her. "I don't suppose you know how to use one?"

"Sorry." They didn't have herd animals in Yulia City.

"That's quite alright. You can still use it to trip them or tie them up." Natalia pulled on her cord, explaining that, "This fabric is very strong. It doesn't take all that much of it to make a rope that would be hard for even a god-general to break. At least not quickly."

"Guy, you, Natalia and Tear are the only ones without fon slot seals."

"So that's why you gave Jade the cord. The three of you won't be able to do much anyway unless you can take someone by surprise." But anyone who assumed they were helpless would be in trouble, although no one would make that mistake with Jade. Luke, though…

"So you were doing…" Tear blushed. "All that to fool the guards?"

Asch and Natalia looked at her in incomprehension, then looked at each other. Natalia coughed. "Oh, yes, you lost your parents. Well, Tear, when two people love each other very much…"

"Or when two hormonal teenagers are alone in a bedroom together for hours doing boring, repetitive work," Jade chimed in. "And then there's the effect deadly danger has on human hormones."

Guy glanced towards the door and longed for the safety of Luke's pillow fort.


	14. Chapter 14

"Anise, be careful! You'll get soap in his eyes!" Even in the room downstairs, Nephry could hear the splashing as Arietta hurriedly pulled Ion back.

"Knock it off, Gloomietta! What do you take me for? This is St. Bynah, remember? I got this special non-irritating bubble bath. _And _soap, _and _shampoo!" Stupid Van, attacking the Tartarus, making her have to buy them all over again since they'd had to leave them behind.

"That was very thoughtful of you, Anise," Arietta said as Ion let out a small sigh of relief, squeezing the squeaky rappig bath toy Arietta had brought him from Daath.

"Well, I saw that they had special stuff for babies, so I asked what was so special about it." Since it was more expensive. "He wanted to learn how to wash himself, but I wasn't going to take any chances." Not when Ion was young, still really clumsy (even though he'd been programmed with walking, they hadn't included bathing) and sickly. What if he drowned, bathing by himself? Anyway, normal people bathed by themselves when they were the age Ion seemed, but Fon Masters had attendants. So Anise had told Ion not to worry about it, but he'd really wanted to learn and she wasn't supposed to stifle his independence.

"Really, Baby Ion? That took me years! First Mommy bathed me, and then your daddy always washed my hair for me." She'd had to learn how to get the shampoo out herself after her Ion had died.

"Well, bathing's kind of boring, if other people do everything and I can't talk because of the soap." Ion blushed. "But, Arietta, Anise showed me a new game! That was why she splashed me, it's a kind of play-fighting. Humans do it in oceans and lakes, too!"

Areitta squealed with delight. "Anise, I never should have doubted you!" More splashing.

At first it seemed like they'd settled down to a splash war, but Anise said, "Get _off _me, Arietta! The shampoo can't stay in his hair too long, and I need to put the conditioner in!" The Fon Master had to look his best."_Then _we can teach Ion how to fight, so he doesn't get bored while it sets." Yes, Anise was pure genius.

"Alright. But yes, Baby Ion, we need to encourage your killer instinct." Nephry and Frings could imagine Arietta wagging her finger at him seriously. "Just because Daathic Fonic Artes tire you out doesn't mean there aren't plenty of ways to kill your enemies, alright?" No son of her Ion or grandson of Arietta's mommy wasn't going to be able to defend themselves! Playfighting was an important part of raising cubs right.

Of course Ion would nod at that, listening to her advice attentively. "Yes, Arietta!"

Nephry chuckled. "So the boy has two mothers, it seems."

"Yes, …ma'am. Forgive me, but you're undercover." So he couldn't refer to her by her rightful title.

"You know, Frings, sometimes I wonder if Van is right. Not about his methods, but the idea that the world is Scored to come to an end soon. It would explain a few things I've noticed."

"Like what, your maj-ma'am?"

"Well, think about it. Reading Jade's reports, doesn't it strain the imagination that Anise's parents have only one child? They don't seem to have much self-control, or the money for birth control artes that don't rely on the competence of their users," Nephry said dryly. She didn't have much more tolerance for foolishness than her brother. She was used to playing good cop with him there, but when paired with the more easygoing Peony?

Frings blushed.

"Two-child families, some with three, used to be normal. Now, even the nobility usually ignore the old rule about 'a heir and a spare.' The only noblemen in Malkuth or Kimlasca with more than one child in the past fifty years were the previous Emperor of Malkuth, the previous king of Kimlasca and the former count Gardios. And think about what happened to their families." All of the emperor's children but Peony had died, all of the count's but Gailardia and of the king's two children, only one had a child of their own.

"…You're right, your… ma'am. I'm the only heir to my family, and if it weren't for my birth Score, my grandmother said she would have been worried by the lack of suitable prospects."

"Ah yes, _suitable_. Tell me, Frings, are you gay?"

Startled, he replied, "I don't think so, ma'am. I am scored to marry a woman."

"Then you're one of very few people I know who isn't. Thank goodness Peony is bi. The reason it took me so long to ask him out wasn't that he was the Emperor's bastard son, but because I was getting mixed signals." In the end, she'd wanted to save him from her brother, who would surely have eaten him alive. "Although on the whole, I'm not complaining. I was worried when the scorer told me who I was going to marry. An old nobleman, a defenseless and beautiful young commoner… But he was very gallant about the whole thing. He even cut his own hand on the wedding night." Even though Nephry had told him it really wasn't necessary, everyone knew she was Peony's girlfriend and would have drawn their own conclusions. "So I had my own bedroom, and he trained me as the next mayor of Keterberg and it was more like being adopted than anything. The two of them were like fathers to me."

The two of them? Frings wondered before realizing that she must have been talking about the previous mayor's lover.

"I never _could _convince them that I wasn't at least bi, however. Apparently the Score tends to arrange marriages like that so that people can take lovers without any hard feelings, especially when one person might have had trouble with their parents otherwise. I thought it had been scored as a consolation prize." For losing her parents and Peony, and putting up with her brother. She frowned. "I don't dress _that much_ like a man, do I?"

"I think that style suits you well, yo-ma'am." Yes, he needed to practice this before spending much time speaking to her in public. "It is a little severe, but it shows that you have authority and control. If I may say so, Emperor Peony was right: you don't seem much like a concubine at all, dressed like that."

"I wore the disguise in Grand Chokmah: I refuse to wear it while traveling." And that was the end of that.

"Of course, ma'am."

"Peony's the one who's suited to that sort of thing, not me." Flowing silk and hair, getting to unwrap him: she'd loved all the layers of clothing he'd worn during Keterberg winters. He'd been like an exotic flower with such sinfully silky petals… And it was that kind of thought that had made her former husband and his lover look at each other and chuckle about her fondness for the inside of Peony's closet. "Still, let me give you another example. There are two men in Keterberg who were trying to court me. How were they competing to win my heart? _Their clothing and interior decorating skills_."

"Oh," was all Frings could say to that.

"I don't know if they're in denial and attracted to me because I'm mannish or they knew about the former mayor and assume I know they know it's just a façade. It's a very good joke, either way." The only question was who it was on.

"I do admire women with strength and spirit," Frings said, telling himself that he had no reason to be worried, the Score had said… But if being scored to marry a woman was no guarantee?

"I've seen you looking at my brother in his uniform."

"With all due respect, your… ma'am, most of the army does. And the civilians even more so. It's hard not to admire a soldier of his prowess and intelligence. He has a fan club, not that I'm in it… And he does look rather like a woman if you haven't seen him before…" Waaait.

Nephry spread her hands. "See what I mean? Just like always, practically everyone is Scored to get married and find someone to love, but so many of those marriages are childless, and even the ones with children often have only one. Both Malkuth and Kimlasca's populations are going to decline rapidly over the next century, even without war or a plague. It's already started: the refugees from the Hod Archipellago are just hiding it from the census-takers and tax collectors." Immigration boosted the population, but when those immigrants had fewer children as well? "Even if this occurred to Kimlasca, which I doubt it has, an era of 'unprecedented prosperity' following a war? Ingobert would assume that the returning soldiers will produce lots of children. After all, that's what's happened through history. But I don't think they will. Not when those children would be doomed to die in a plague."

"You think this is Lorelei's doing," Frings realized, staring at her with a combination of shock at what she was saying, surprise that she'd come up with something like this and admiration that she was probably right.

She really was Jade's sister, wasn't she?

"Exactly." She nodded. "The Score is the best of all possible futures, the Order has always preached that. If the world is doomed and it might not be possible to stop it, if the people of Malkuth are doomed to be exterminated by war and plague, Kimlasca by starvation if not plague," when they were too afraid to travel to the most fertile lands on the planet for fear of the plague? Then far from an era of prosperity, if their population boomed they'd be unable to support it, and those children would begin to starve. "Then what would Lorelei do, to minimize humanity's suffering?"

Frings grasped his sword. "Not just that. Better a quick death in war then…" Then watching those around him die of Kimlascan brutality, plague or poison in the air.

"The soldiers of Kimlasca are not monsters: even Duke Fabre seems to have mellowed in his old age." The Butcher had been under orders from the Order to eliminate, or try to, the ducal house of Hod. "But a protracted, bloody campaign, where they'd seen so many of their own soldiers killed by ours, having to fight their way up the Rugnica plains, spilling blood for every blade of grass as our soldiers fought to protect their families…"

"It would be vengeance," Frings whispered, face as pale as his hair.

"Even the civilians would have been forced to take up arms by that point, and they would try to protect themselves and their families." Meaning the protections the Order's laws accorded noncombatants would no longer apply to them. "Very few would be left to mourn the dead, or bury them."

"And Kimlasca would have lost most of a generation of young people as well. If they think it's a just war, of vengeance, to avenge a city that used to be Kimlascan a generation ago, and their young prince?"

Nephry nodded. "Princess Natalia is _very _beloved by her people. And once those letters started to be sent home?" Telling families that they had lost one of their own, that now cried out for vengeance as well? "Few will try to dodge the draft, with all the martial propaganda they've been putting on for years, and fewer will succeed." Who would hide them, when they were shirking their duty to kingdom and blood? "The Rugnica plains, the safest place on this world," the weakest monsters roamed there, which was only part of why it was the world's breadbowl, "will devour practically everyone of breeding age." She grimaced: that was how her brother would have put it. 'Breeding age,' indeed. But that was what it came down to. "Since Asch told Jade, and Van also warned us, we've known that this war would be a slaughter. But I think that's just what it is. The people of Hod died quickly, mostly: so will the people of Akzeriuth, I'm sure. The war will kill off a large percentage of what's left, and will the plague be painful, I wonder? Or will they just feel tired. Perhaps it will attack the nerves. I'm sure Malkuth's survivors will be exhausted, and scarred by what they've endured."

"Putting them to sleep. Like a pet dog."

"Isn't that more merciful, if they're doomed to die anyway?" One could even argue that such behavior was within the rights of a fonon sentience: weren't they a higher level of being than humans? But the dog could bite back, and as long as there was some chance of survival?

* * *

><p><em>I come up with a perfect justification for writing as much shonen-ai as I want, and I use it in a fic where there's this much het? WTF, brain. <em>

_Arietta/Anise OTP now, by the way. Ion needs all the Mama Bears he can get. Anise is hoping they can capture Sync and find Florian ASAP, because it's cheaper to buy stuff in bulk._


	15. Chapter 15

Some time after they managed to escape from the Den of Iniquity and Luke allowed Tear to take shelter with him and Fluffy to hide her flaming cheeks, Guy was wondering how long he had before Jade got bored and how to prevent such a dangerous thing, hazardous to life, limb and sanity when they heard, "Hey, Jade?" A voice and a grasping hand came from under the protective tablecloth.

Oh? That was curious. The boy sounded uncharacteristically nervous. "What is it, Luke?" Jade asked, looking down at the hand that was tugging lightly on his ankle. The tablecloth was falling down again: Luke had lifted it up a bit to peek out and make sure he was getting the right ankle.

"You aren't really mad with Peony, are you? I mean, you've been friends for _ages_." Before even Natalia was born. "I mean, you guys not being friends anymore is… Like Asch and _Guy_ not being friends anymore."

"Oh? Worried about your parents breaking up, are we?"

"Well, it almost happened, because Natalia didn't know why Guy couldn't be around her, and she wanted Asch to have a manservant that wouldn't mind serving her too, once they got married," Luke almost babbled. "That was back before I was born, but what if Guy really had left and I'd never gotten to meet him?" Jade wouldn't do that to Peony's kids, right?

Guy wondered at what point he'd become Asch's friend. It might have been the time Asch had stood in the doorway of their room and ordered Guy to escape out the window with Luke, that time Duke Fabre had listened to Mohs and sent the White Knights to take Luke away and hand him over. Asch had damn near bitten the Duke's hand off to startle the man into letting him go run and warn Guy.

That was when Guy had remembered someone else facing down soldiers they couldn't possibly actually beat to protect a little boy. Fortunately Asch had been too busy staring them down, daring them to attack the duke's hair, to yell at Guy for just standing there shaking instead of moving, damn it.

It was just coincidence that Guy had curled into a ball around Luke. The kid had been something warm to hold, a wriggling life instead of cooling bodies. When the sounds of soldiers and yelling stopped and Guy came to, once the crying Luke was in Natalia's capable hands Asch had looked at him with rare respect. Duke Fabre's son had bowed his head to a servant, no, a man, that he didn't know was an enemy. Asch thought he'd done that to protect Luke, shielded the replica Van created with his own body, and Guy was still too scattered, shaken by the memories to tell him that wasn't true at all.

"When I am king," Asch said, and in that moment he looked it, "You will be knighted."

That, that forced Guy to find words. "What if I don't want to give you my sword?" That, he thought the instant after he said it, was an incredibly stupid thing for a supposedly-loyal servant to say. Turning down knighthood?

Asch looked taken aback, but then that shock had morphed into surprise, and it was as though he was focusing his eyes on Guy for the first time. It had scared Guy more than a little at the time, because he wanted to be an unobtrusive, overlooked servant. He wanted to fade into the background. He _really _didn't want Asch to figure out that Guy wanted to kill his family, not when Guy had dropped his sword, Asch was still holding his and Guy knew Asch's reaction to threats to Luke.

As Guy thought that, he glanced over to where Natalia comforted a crying child her size on the outside but still so young, and maybe that was when he noticed that Natalia's hair was blonde, just like Mary's. That Luke was just a little kid, just like him, and his family's responsibility because he'd been created by Van. Which made absolutely no sense, but Asch had come back too broken up to be knowingly lying. It was so insane it had to be true. The pompous brat Guy had loathed was gone, just like the innocent little boy Gailardia was gone and in his place was Guy the avenger. This wasn't Luke anymore. This was Asch. That was when Guy figured that out. In his defense, it had been a hectic couple of months since Lu-Asch returned.

Asch followed his gaze and when Guy looked back up at him, Asch looked thoughtful. Then he turned back to Guy.

"Forgive me," he said, and bowed. "For taking your loyalty so lightly."

So he thought Guy didn't want to swear to him because he hadn't done that because of Asch's orders, he'd done that to protect Luke?

"When I am king, I will grant you a title," Asch corrected what he'd said before. "And I hope that I will come to deserve your loyalty, no matter to whom you give your sword." He hadn't demanded a response from Guy, who was now even more shocked dumb, instead bowing his head again and turning back to Natalia because issues of loyalty and swords were serious Man issues and while it was alright to interrogate servants about them, it wasn't alright to interrogate someone who had shielded Asch's… whatever with his own body.

After Jade, the bastard, had given away who Guy was Asch, no longer being a fool, was quickly able to deduce that Guy was here for vengeance. After all, that obviously was what Asch would do.

Guy had been looking around for an exit when Asch snorted. "Don't worry about it."

"What? Your highness, are you serious?" Guy hadn't had to refer to him by his correct title since the day he'd held Luke like that, thinking of what others had done to protect a little boy.

"Well,_ I_ want to kill _Natalia's_ father," Asch pointed out reasonably. For Asch's value of reasonably, anyway. Asch wanted to see blood running down his blade, but that didn't mean he didn't love Natalia. So, in his mind, since Natalia had forgiven Asch for feeling this way and knew Asch was holding himself back because he loved her (and even for the three of them, dodging soldiers with a child to look after would be troublesome), Guy wanting vengeance on Duke Fabre didn't necessarily have anything to do with his relationship with Asch or Luke. In fact, this could turn out for the best. "A patricide couldn't hold the throne, not to mention how poor Mother would feel. And Natalia can't kill the Duke of Belkend."

Wait. "Are you saying that…"

"If we have to fight my father to protect this country, Luke and Akzeriuth, then you have our permission to take the head of Duke Fabre."

It took Guy a moment to realize that Asch had said 'our' meaning that he was speaking for himself and Natalia (and who else? Was the beloved princess gathering allies?) instead of using the royal plural, he'd been that formal.

"Actually, this works out perfectly. As second son, Luke will have to inherit Belkend, but when I'm seventeen he'll still only be seven." Thirteen years until his majority: it was one thing for a king to seize a throne when they were a little young, but holding a dukedom at that age? "I was already intending to make you his regent." Now Guy was even more qualified.

The head of his enemy. His enemy's dukedom: Belkend had plenty of unclaimed land to settle Hod's refugees on.

Guy still hadn't wanted to give Asch his sword, but that was a pretty compelling offer.

Still, for Luke to think of the two of them as inseparable friends? Like Peony and Jade? Well, Peony and Jade did argue a lot. And Jade threatened to kill Peony a lot, which Guy hadn't, not in Luke's hearing.

Wow, Luke really needed to get out more, and Guy really needed to make sure that Luke didn't think of insults as a sign of friendship. Not from people who didn't have permission to insult you, anyway.

Jade smiled with false reassurance even though Guy was the only one able to see it. "Well, Luke, there's no need to worry. Why, upon reflection, I think this is a wonderful idea on Emperor Peony's part. After all, the most important thing is that Dist must never be allowed to enter the gene pool, even at the shallow end. This way, he'll be prevented from breeding, and in the event he _does _breed despite being married to me, even my sister will forgive me for killing him."

Guy shuddered. "No fear of _that_." Cheating on _Jade_? Even Dist couldn't be that dumb, right?

"Also, the busier Peony is kept, the less time he will have to make those ridiculous outfits." Jade was sure it wouldn't take Nephry long to discover that Peony had a secret passage going to Jade's office, and insisted Jade keep a comfy couch in there even though Jade would rather uncomfortable furniture that encouraged visitors to leave for the sake of their backs. Once that passage was sealed up, Jade would be able to get some work done without Peony coming to complain to him about how Nephry wasn't letting his bedroom be a rappigsty. Nephry would discover that having to live with Peony was entirely different from seeing him after school: Jade was the only one who had snuck in and seen what Peony's bedroom looked like in Keterberg.

Jade, a mere colonel, didn't have the power to whip Peony into shape, but Jade's sister now did. The idea of missing Peony's irritating games and distractions was not only ridiculous to begin with, but in the event Jade found himself wanting terrible clothing in his life, Dist would more than make up the deficit.

"He'll make time to make some for you Jade, right? Right," Luke realized, sounding relieved. "Nephry must just want to play too, since she's your sister."

"Of course, Luke."

Of course Jade was lying, Guy thought, when he spoke with a false warmth like that even though most of the time he was so cold that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.

"But I'm afraid that right now, Peony and Nephry are both very busy, and after that they're going to want to spend some time playing with themselves. Cosplay isn't the only kind of game that Peony and Natalia both enjoy, hmm? Although I'm sure both of them have already realized that they can combine their two passions. By the way, Guy, did you notice that there are some red hairs sticking to those ropes you and Luke were given? It seems that Asch has made much more progress towards conquering his own phobia than you have yours."

"What? What do you…" Then Guy put two and two together. "Gah!"

"What? What happened, Guy?" Alarmed, Luke tried to jump to his feet. "Ow!"

"It's nothing, Luke," Guy said automatically, followed by the automatic, "Are you okay."

"I'm fine… It's okay, Tear, really." They heard Luke rubbing his head, although his hair moving around like that would only aggravate the bruise. Not that it would last long anyway, not on Luke's thick skull.

Asch's two main fears were having Luke taken away and being tied up, helpless and experimented on. Ripped apart. Being at the mercy of someone who didn't have any. The Jade-recommended therapy for Guy's fear of being touched by women was for Guy to be touched by women without suffering any further pain, and perhaps eventually being able to enjoy it.

So, he would have told Asch that in order to get rid of his weakness, he should let himself be tied up.

"Even in Malkuth, we hear stories about how caring Princess Natalia is, how much time she spends helping those in need."

Asch being tied up by Princess Natalia.

"You're talking about something dirty again, aren't you?" Luke asked suspiciously.

"Well, since you asked…"

This time, Guy was the one who covered his ears and started humming.

That didn't help with the mental images.


	16. Chapter 16

"Why are there so many oracle knights here?" Luke whispered to Asch, clinging to his arm as the two of them walked in the center of a ring of guards. Legretta had made it clear that it was walk or be bound and dragged, so of course Asch was walking along with his head high and trying to get Luke to do the same. But not too hard, because, well, Luke was seven, and no matter what happened people were going to die. It was just a question of who and how many.

"They were ordered to go to their own deaths, in accordance with the Score," Van told him. "After all, Mohs would have wanted to make sure of your death, either way." Whichever one of them had gone to Akzeriuth: Asch, or Luke as Van had planned. "So soldiers were sent, as Lorelei decreed and Mohs wanted. That is the evil of the Score. It turns human life and death into nothing but… accounting." Without the resources of the Order it had been harder to find malcontents, fund and organize his movement in secret. Still, at least there had been no more talk of favoritism, complaints that he was too young for his post. He'd been able to shave off that damnable itchy goatee he'd grown in order to make himself look older in futile hope they'd stop the snide remarks before he blew his cover by killing one of the damned maestros.

When he'd left the order he'd only been a little older than Natalia. Three years younger than Gailardia was now, and yet all of them seemed so young.

Unlike Asch, Vandesdelca had never been allowed to be a child, with a child's selfishness. He shouldn't have thought he would ever find a kindred spirit in the boy.

Gailardia: he didn't want Gailardia to ever understand. Or little Mystearica.

Luke looked down at the ground, then behind them to where Natalia, Guy and all the others walked, surrounded by more guards from Van's faction. It made him feel better to see them, even though he wished they weren't here. They'd be safer that way, and then there was the miasma that surrounded them. Tear and Jade said it was poisonous.

Luke was already smart enough not to tell Van, 'Well, you brought your sister and Guy here just because the Score said the Scion of Lorelei would bring his people to the miner's city, and now they're in danger and breathing in poison.' He wasn't as good at dealing with people as Natalia, even if he was good at calming down people Asch had angered, but he knew that wouldn't help anything. He was just glad Asch was too busy being the prissy prince to say it himself.

Tear carried Fluffy, who was muzzled so he couldn't breathe fire. The ring he wore as a belt had belonged to Yulia, and surely it was the Score's doing that it had fallen into Luke's hands so conveniently. Van was certain of it. There might be more locks than just the Daathic Seal to open, and since the Key of Lorelei hadn't turned up yet the Sorcerer's Ring must be the key to the sephiroth.

Natalia was biting her lip: Luke winced to see it and was glad Asch couldn't. Even though these weren't her subjects, she was so worried for everyone. It wasn't just her fiancé and her sort-of-son in danger, it was the people of Akzeriuth. She'd known that before, but she hadn't really thought about it, focused on what she might lose. Or perhaps it was that she'd thought that they wouldn't really die, that she and Asch would surely find some way to save them, so as long as she managed to save Asch and Luke they didn't have to worry.

These people had been Kimlascan citizens not all that long ago, as nations counted time, and Emperor Peony was a dear friend of hers. He had to have some plan besides sending her that special fabric disguised as dresses for her and Jade, right?

Guy saw her distress and wished he could put a hand on her shoulder or something. He wasn't sure he could get away with speaking the way Luke had: everyone here knew Luke's history and children could get away with stuff adults couldn't, especially adults trained as warriors and further trained as assassins. First to kill the Fabre household, and then to defend it, or part of it anyway. Not to mention that Guy himself wanted to have a family someday, and not just Luke. So far the bidding war between Natalia and Peony for his future services was mostly just a joke… Heh, who was he kidding. He'd rather look after Luke than some rappigs, even if a couple of those rappigs were named Luke and Natalia.

He'd rather not meet Cute Jade, thanks. Not when this one was disturbingly attractive and a rappig was just disturbing.

Deeper and deeper they went into the tunnels. If most of them weren't used to Baticul's crater, Tear hadn't grown up underground and Jade wasn't Jade they might have felt even more trapped and helpless as the walls closed in on them and the miasma thickened.

They stopped when the scouts Van had sent in earlier finally led them to a door that seemed covered by a stained glass window to fonic sight. Jade and Tear could sense an immense concentration of fonons behind that door.

The sephiroth, it had to be.

"Sync," Van called.

"I'm coming, I'm coming," they heard as Sync pushed forward through the procession, finally elbowing Jade out of his way. "This is it, right?"

"Yes," Van said solemnly. "Are you ready?"

"I learned the arte. And it's not like anyone will care when I die," Sync said in a way that gave Asch the urge to hit upside the head hard enough to drive the pipsqueak into the ground a few inches. Later, Asch promised himself. If they survived.

Sync walked forward and did something with the door that made patterns appear and alter until the seal shattered as Sync fell to the ground. Van carefully picked him up and sat him with his back to the wall next to the door. "Hey," Sync complained. "Can't I… see this?"

"Yes. You, carry him," Van ordered two of the guards.

"Yes, sir." With a salute no less proper for the fact none of them wore any uniform, the two of them went to assist Sync as Van waved Legretta and the scouts forward into the sephiroth to examine the path before them. The destruction of Akzeriuth was scored, so surely Yulia would have left a clear path for Asch, but that didn't mean it was safe for anyone else.

Wow, Luke thought. Asch had to be dignified, but Luke was free to gawk. This place was so beautiful. He really hoped they didn't destroy it. What about Guy, too? He loved fontech.

"Don't chew on your hair," Asch said out of the corner of his mouth, barely moving his lips at all. That was something nobles had to learn how to do, since they were watched all the time.

"Sorry." Luke blushed, then took out the piece of hair he had stuck the end of in his mouth without realizing it. At least Natalia wasn't in range to lecture him about bad habits and giving himself split ends. Asch chewed on pens, which was much better, apparently, if you absolutely _had _to gnaw on something while you thought. At least it was better for Asch than gnashing his teeth.

As if Asch hadn't been annoyed enough already, they'd been given 'plainclothes' to wear to walk into the city. Even Luke knew that it was futile to try not to attract attention, not when Master Van was so tall and they were surrounded by what were obviously guards even though they weren't in uniform. Not to mention that Luke's clothes were anything but discreet. Sky-blue pants and bracers, a bright green shirt with no sleeves, a yellow belt and a red bandanna that he was probably supposed to use to hide his hair, but there hadn't been enough of it to fit all his hair in, so he'd just tied it around his neck? Natalia and Guy had both winced at how he looked, so it probably clashed with his coloring something awful. Luke knew it was something he wouldn't have been caught dead in normally. It didn't have his 'rawr monster' picture on it, the one that Natalia had helped him put on all his clothing once he whispered to her that it was supposed to be Asch.

Where had they gotten this outfit? Was it stuff people had wanted to get rid of? Jade was in a doctor's outfit, which he hated but it made sense for a doctor to come to Akzeriuth to help the people who were getting sick, right? Was Guy supposed to be a lawyer in that suit, then? Natalia was dressed as a maid, but Tear had a pretty blue dress: that was unfair. At least Asch was in the Viscount uniform, because at least the people in the know had to recognize him. Among the people from the Order who had met them at the entrance to the city was a man with a crate of carrier pigeons. At least the poor birds would be gone when… if anything happened.

How did Van think he, Guy and Tear were going to get out of here, anyway? Would they really all fit on Dist's chair? With Jade, too? And Largo would want to take Natalia.

Luke tried to think about how that would work, because it was really funny, instead of what was probably going to happen. Or not.

There was a music on the edge of hearing in this place, but Luke knew better than to hum along, especially because Van and Tear might be able to hear it too. Then Van would be even more certain that Luke was connected to Lorelei and both of them were evil. Luke didn't _think _he was evil. That was Asch. Asch said so himself.

Finally, they came to this big… thing. Guy might know the proper name for it, but Luke didn't. Van motioned for the others to stop, and they did, until Van motioned for Asch to come forward. Luke pushed Asch along a bit, because otherwise he would probably have been obstinate by default and then Legretta might have kicked him or something.

"Now, Asch," Van told him. "Call upon the power inside you, the power of Lorelei. Hyperresonance. Turn power to calamity and fulfill the Score of the Score's own destruction."

"I can't." You moron. "My fon slots are sealed, remember?"

Van laughed. "Hyperresonance isn't a normal fonic arte. The seventh fonons within your body vibrate, and the world resonates with your voice, the voice of Lorelei. Everything follows the dictates of the planet's memory. But if you won't obey mine; Sync? I need your power once again."

It took a moment for Sync to respond, although not long enough any of the soldiers dared poke him to make him hurry up. "The hard part was putting the curse slot in place with all his fon slots sealed."

Jade was the only one who had any idea what Sync was talking about.

"So, I just need to make him angry enough to destroy it no matter what it takes? That's easy." Even Sync had heard of how Asch went berserk and attacked Van.

"Asch!" Luke cried out as Asch fell to his knees, a glyph appearing on the back of his neck. Natalia and the others tried to rush forward, but even with the ropes to help them trip and ensnare enemies so Guy could get his hands on a sword, they were too far back.

The growl was low at first, barely on the edge of hearing yet enough to make the guards take a step back.

Then Asch screamed, not in fear or pain but pure _rage_. Redgold light flared from him, almost more red than gold, as he jumped to his feet, hands reaching out as though to grasp someone's throat. Yet there was nothing between them but more of that light, more of that pure power.

Hyperresonance.

"No!" Luke cried out. He couldn't reach Asch, but he could tap his own power, since Van had revealed the secret, that it wasn't like mere fonic artes, the power fonists could tap.

Second-order hyperresonance was only theoretical, but he had to stop Asch.

"Legretta," Van said calmly.

Legretta clubbed Luke on the back of the head with one of her guns once, then twice. Only when Luke fell and the light disappeared did she say, "Yes, sir."

"Good work, Legretta," Van said, but the last word was drowned out by the explosion. "Now for the second fonic hymn."


	17. Chapter 17

_Posted early to make up for missing last weekend's update._

* * *

><p>Natalia strained against the arms of the guards that held her back while Guy uttered a rare curse. "Dammit, let me go! You bitch, he's just a kid!" When he got his hands on Legretta!<p>

Normally, Natalia would have given him a significant look until Guy apologized for using language like that in front of poor, impressionable Luke. Asch, the guards Luke sparred with and Luke's desire to be considered 'mature' were doing terrible things to his vocabulary. Asch cursed like a soldier (or a sailor) himself, although Natalia was sure that wasn't the only reason the Kimlascan forces considered Asch one of them. Of course Luke wanted to imitate Asch and have as many friends as possible.

Right now, however, only the strength of her will as a lady and princess, not to mention the refusal to lower herself to anyone's level kept Natalia from leveling curses profane and descriptive on Van, his troops, his actions, his ideals and his family onto the seventh generation (Tear excepted, of course). So, under the circumstances, not only was she entirely happy with Guy's language but he was taking the words she couldn't say right out of her mouth.

She would give him a raise, but he'd already refused them several times, on the grounds that he didn't want the other servants to see him as too favored. It might be suspicious and he didn't need the money. There had to be _something _she could do for him when this was over.

Other than try to comfort him for the loss of Luke while she mourned Asch as well.

The ground shifted under everyone's feet as the honeycomb the second fonic hymn generated appeared around them, stabilizing them as they fell but not keeping Natalia's stomach from failing to catch up with her body properly.

She managed to keep her feet, though, and so had Guy. Everyone seemed to feel a little ill, except Van.

And Tear, who was the first to take advantage of her guards' queasy distraction and momentary terror as the ground fell out from under them to get her arms free of their grasp, use the tie that bound her hands to lift a sword out of its sheath by catching the hilt and cut herself free. The blade was sharp and she hadn't been fon slot sealed, so even though she wasn't the strongest physically she was still stronger than any normal human.

Seeing her run forward past them made Natalia and Guy snap out of their futile rage. In the same instant, Natalia used the same sweeping heel-strike Asch taught Luke to knock the legs out from under her guards while Guy simply rammed himself to the side, forcing them to let him go, knock over a few of their co-conspirators, or both.

Almost as though they were synchronized, they each cut themselves free with practiced hands (Luke wasn't the only one who had learned how to escape after Asch's kidnapping) and ran forward: Natalia dropped to her knees and pulled poor dear Asch's body up into her lap while Guy went to Luke, ignoring Tear's proximity.

"Luke! Come on, Luke, wake up!" Guy shook him, his arms wrapped around Tear's arms as Tear put everything she had into her song. She was barely powerful enough to cast it yet, but there were so many seventh fonons in the air, and it was Major Legretta, her teacher, that had hurt poor little Luke.

The only prisoner who didn't make a break for it was Jade. He was Jade, of course, so the fall had frightened him less than the others, but sealed as he was he wouldn't have been able to stand upright if his guards hadn't held him. When Guy flung his off him, they'd knocked into the clump that surrounded Jade, who was currently buried in rogue Oracle Knights and trying not to lose his breakfast. Fortunately none of them had much appetite to speak of, not when they knew what was at stake.

Trying to lever the heavily-armed and armored knightsoff his fragile bones was difficult work for a poor old man. He would have managed it, of course, if they hadn't kept trying to do it themselves, moving around and poking things in uncomfortable places. Well, at least they had finally managed to almost sort themsel-

_Crunch_.

The oracle knight jumped back with a surprisingly high-pitched shriek for someone in shapeless armor and a faceless mask: the sound was clearly prompted by sheer surprise rather than shock, much less regret: it ended almost as quickly as it began once the knight processed what they'd stepped in while they were focused on getting up to recapture the prisoners and obey their orders (just the Necromancer). The sound made almost everyone jump, including Tear. It wasn't as though the Oracle knights didn't take women: was this another of Legretta's students, Tear wondered until she saw what had made her react like that.

Jade, _Jade_, was clutching a crushed hand, letting air out through his teeth slowly, focusing on that and instead of screaming himself. _Jade, _the experienced colonel, the Necromancer the oldest and wisest (mostly) of them. They'd known he'd been fon slot sealed, but it was impossible to think of him being fragile, his jokes about old bones or not.

Tear quickly started singing Revitalize again. Legretta was the only one to notice that behind his poker face, Van was staring at Jade's hand. Seeing the inventor of that cursed arte bleed? The legendary necromancer, the genius fonologist? Colonel Jade Curtiss was a legend in his own time: everyone in Malkuth said he was one of the greatest fonists of all time. One of the greatest fonists since the ancient fonic war, at least.

Van knew he couldn't be as powerful as them. Most of the power of the other fonons had been locked away, after the battle artes the planet storm had fueled during the war Yulia had ended by binding Lorelei and enslaving the world to keep the fools from killing themselves. The miasma that surrounded them, the Qliphoth they'd fallen into was proof of humanity's true nature. Sheep, even without the Score, that had been so eager to be bound by a Score that they'd cut everything down in their path to control the fonon. "The world is addicted," he said as Tear's song finished. "In ancient times, he would have lost the use of that hand, without the power of the seventh fonon." Even if they'd been able to repair it with whatever lost techniques they'd had back then, Jade would surely have lost the ability to control such a long and heavy weapon with the dexterity needed for conventional strike artes.

Guy grimaced, Natalia glared at Van for using someone's pain to make a _point_ and Jade might have made some attempt to get Tear to stop healing him, borne his wound with dignity to make his own point, but, but _ow_. He might heal slower than the vast majority of people around him because he had no trace of the seventh fonon in him whatsoever, not even the dusting those like Anise had, with too little to master seventh fonic artes on their own, but he'd never felt anything quite like this. Normally he had no trouble ignoring damage to carry on with the mission, had no trouble ignoring his body when it demanded food or told him that it was too hot or too cold, but now he found himself thinking of the General he'd blinded.

It had taken a very special fonic arte to do that, when the man was a seventh fonist himself with some quite powerful healing artes. It was Jade himself that had recommended Natalia have the man tracked down, since she was so determined to not just dabble in the Lanvaldear style of archery but become a warrior capable of defending her prince.

Only those kept away from a seventh fonist too long couldn't have their injuries healed. Getting around that had been a personal challenge, really. A rather spiteful parlor trick, in a sense. He might have sworn off research and then amended that to _selfish _research that harmed others, but he'd told himself that he was a soldier, after all, and what else was he supposed to do with the man? He was a powerful fonist, and not worth the expense of capturing him with a fon slot seal. Without some way of incapacitating him to keep him from healing himself and fighting his way out through less-powerful soldiers the instant Jade turned his back, there would have been no alternative to killing him.

Still, maybe it was just Van's words; maybe it was the permanence of what had happened to Akzeriuth. Maybe it was simply the fact that he _needed _this hand. Maybe it was that he could never really remember being so weak: he'd been fighting Keterberg's monsters since before his brain started really forming clear memories. Around the time he learned to read. He thought that had been at age two, but no one around him had kept track, or told him if they had.

Maybe the fumes of this place were addling his brain, or he had just let the pain get to him the way Saphir had. All of this 'getting more in touch with his emotions' nonsense Peony kept making him do hadn't shown any signs of actually working before, but if this was how it showed itself, then it was even more worthless than Jade had thought.

The rush of relief when the pain stopped and his head cleared was as good as a drug: this was one of the chemicals that herbal medicines tried to imitate, in fact. Both herbal and recreational. When he was young he'd despised people who'd clouded what meager brains they possessed, but that was before he'd acquired memories that could use a little clouding, thoughts he wanted stopped, although sadly going back in time and preventing himself from thinking them was as impossible and irrational as Saphir's desire to bring back Professor Nebilim as a means of getting Jade 'back…'

He was still loopy enough from the endorphins and such after he was healed that they were able to lever him to his feet without any particular trouble, and he almost giggled at the way Guy had drawn a stolen sword half-out of its sheath with one hand and was giving the Oracle Knights that had been assigned to mind him a 'just try separating me from my _injured baby _for I am a worried father and I could use the stress relief' look as Tear and Natalia continued to coo worriedly over Luke and Asch respectively.

Jade tried to come up with some suitable mockery, but he refused to giggle. Akzeriuth had just been destroyed, and he refused to serve as comic relief any more than he already had. And giggling? He wasn't Saphir.

The part of him that remained rational noticed that all this was classic avoidance. Right now he'd just failed to protect Akzeriuth, Asch and/or Luke was dying (Luke and possibly Asch as well _would _die), and here he was focusing on medical minutiae and his own selfish fondness for medicine when he should be accepting reality and coming up with a plan. Who was he to criticize the others for focusing on what had happened to their loved ones instead of the city's fall? At least they were being somewhat more productive.

_Stepped on _by an outcast _Oracle Knight_. He hoped neither Dist nor Peony heard about this. Especially since Dist couldn't ever keep his damn mouth shut, so what he knew Peony would soon know.

Efreet help him, if Dist _ever _went on about 'poor Jade' and threatened to kill this oracle knight for hurting his poor insert-idiotic-pet-name-here, he was going to murder him in his sleep, regardless of the wrath of Nephry and the lectures and embarrassing clothing of Peony.

The two of them had gotten smarter as they got older. Normally Jade would have considered this an improvement. And now they had teamed up again. Why on earth had he been happy about this?

His failure to get his thoughts back into some sort of order was interrupted by the, "Gah!" as Guy belatedly realized that he'd been practically wrapped up with Tear there, both of them sheltering Luke in their arms. He jumped back, which sent him stumbling back a few steps before he ended up knocking into Van, who caught him and steadied him.

Seeing that, Jade was suddenly struck by the resemblance to himself and Peony. The young blond noble with a generous heart and the monster that tried to protect them. Except Guy had the sense to reject Van. All it would take to make it perfect would be for Guy to marry Van's sister.

And from the way that Tear was apologizing as the fonist picked Luke up, while Guy was stammering out his own apology for startling her like that and hurting her feelings, both of them talking over each other and blushing fit to match Luke's hair that seemed likelier by the second.


	18. Chapter 18

Since the Tartarus was Jade's ship he could have broken them out of these cells any time he liked, not to mention disable the ship itself, but since they were here in the Qliphoth that was obviously a bad idea. Until they reached Yulia City there was nowhere to escape to, with the ship shut down they couldn't reach Yulia City and the Tartarus' climate control was all that was keeping them from having nothing to breathe but miasma. He would thank engineering for replacing the air filters with the newly developed ones the Kimlascan forces used smuggled in from Sheridan, but they'd all been murdered by Van's forces.

Pity.

He'd have to right the consolation letters to their families as soon as he got home: that was one of the duties of a ranking officer. Trying to figure out how to convey sympathy was quite hard work, but thankfully there was a form letter he'd obtained by copying one of General Frings' letters and Nephry wouldn't bother him while he did it. In fact, she'd insist he do it and likely be at least somewhat surprised when he did it unprompted.

He hadn't seen Nephry in years, and now he might see her every day, in the course of his duties, unless he took on missions outside of Grand Chokmah. He wasn't sure whether she'd use the secret passage Peony had into Jade's office or have it closed off.

He wasn't sure which would be worse.

Perhaps he envied these four, and there close-knit little family. The way three children had taken in a monster, a replica created by the accursed fontechnology known as fomicry. The way Luke didn't mind Asch's moments of viciousness and propensity for violence. Rather, he appreciated everything Asch did for him.

He wondered if that made Natalia their little group's version of Dist, because of how she'd adored Asch from the beginning and hadn't rejected him even when he returned, changed. Or perhaps she was the Peony in all of this, given her fondness for costuming and her job as Asch-tamer.

He was fairly certain that if it weren't for her, Asch would have gone berserk and started gnawing on the bars by now. If Asch was awake, that was.

Jade wracked his brain for a sarcastic or tasteless comment to make, something to disrupt this solemn vigil over the dying. Comparing Natalia to Dist? No, she'd sweetly and honestly thank him for trying to take her mind off of it, but she wouldn't lose sight of what was happening for an instant. Compare Guy to Dist? No, he'd consider that flattering, given Dr. Gneiss' accomplishments in the field of fontech.

"Should we put them together or keep them apart?" Guy asked him when they were put in here.

"I doubt it will make any difference." Jade was honestly surprised with the question, given how much time Guy spent studying the seventh fonon and the related fontech. "Second-order hyperresonance could block ordinary artes, but we don't have enough seventh fonists," not awake, anyway, "and mere physical distance won't help."

Natalia sighed, but said, "Let's put them together, then." That might help Asch. Having Luke there always calmed him, but would this mean Luke would be lost inside Asch? Or would she lose both her fiancé and their son? "I'll sit on this side, Guy," she told him, perched on the edge of the cot.

"Right, thanks." Guy settled Luke next to Asch and then sat down on the other side, next to Luke. "We've got three seventh fonists, even if I'm not very powerful." Guy could heal himself, but that was it.

Tear looked puzzled, sitting down a couple feet away from him, down by Luke's knees as she put Fluffy in between Luke and Asch. "Well, if that's enough, we have four seventh fonists."

"What? Oh, yes." Jade snapped his fingers. "The sacred cheagle. Created, or rather reshaped by Lorelei. That must have been done by hyperresonance, so the originals must have passed seventh fonons and fonic ability on to their descendants."

"That's not what I meant, but that means Fluffy makes five!" Tear smiled, finally.

Jade's expression suddenly changed to the pleasant mask that had been his default for so many years. "What _do_ you mean, then?"

Tear blinked at him, frowning a little. "Well, no one can use the seventh fonon without having seventh fonons in their bodies, right? Someone born with them is a potential seventh fonist. So, if someone can use a seventh fonic arte, that means they must be a seventh fonist."

"Yes," Jade said, drawn out in a way that said, 'Get on with it.' Did she have a point, or was she going to keep spouting basic knowledge.

"Your mystic arte," she said, her frown deepening. "Admonishing _melody_."

Jade sighed dismissively, the breath carrying a tinge of aggravation. Certainly not relief. "That's just the incantation. Although it is a blend of the four fonons I'm capable of controlling… No, the seventh fonon is a blend of all six." Earth, air, fire and water: the base elements. Tests conducted back in childhood showed that he had a very minute quantity of the sixth fonon as well, but so far he hadn't been able to channel any of it into his artes, including the one that created that insane replica of his Professor.

Tear looked puzzled. Out of the corner of his eye, Jade saw Guy and Natalia glance at each other, then conduct some conversation with slight changes of expression & darting glances at Jade, Tear and Luke that gradually alarmed both of them, although they hid it well. It was all gobbledygook to him, but perhaps the children of nobility were trained in that sort of facial sign language so they could carry on conversations while smiling for the people or having to be quiet and presentable.

"No, it's definitely a seventh fonic arte," said Tear, finally working up the courage to tell the Necromancer, the greatest living fonic researcher, that he was wrong. "Isn't it, Natalia?"

Natalia opened her mouth, eyes darting around even more as she tried to think of a way out, but Jade cut in while she was still hesitating, trying to figure out what to say. "That's impossible. First, I'm not a seventh fonist. Second, seventh fonic artes are healing artes, not offensive artes." Except for the second fonic hymn, and Tear said earlier that she thought there were two more offensive hymns. "It's… It's just not possible," he said, and knew that the person he was really saying that to was himself. "Stop wasting time. We have four seventh fonists and need to focus on what can be done for Asch and…"

"Ahem." The faux-polite interruption, tinged as it was with cruel amusement, stopped Jade in his tracks. Natalia winced: she'd seen Van just a second ago, and the sight had alarmed her too much to call anyone's attention to him in time. "My sister is correct. You are a seventh fonist, even though you weren't born with the fonon inside you. You created that arte: you _know _that it works. Dist's tests confirmed it." Although Dist hadn't been trying to make seventh fonists: he'd tried to find a way to give his dear Jade what he wanted. To get back their dear Professor Nebilim, and Jade had wanted to be like her, able to fake kindness and be loved for it, so, so much.

Pathetic, in both senses of the word. It both disgusted him and invoked a little pity, because he knew what it was to be born a monster. The monster that would destroy Hod. Because of the work of another monster.

"As for why you didn't turn into a monster," Van continued, his smile growing as he held startled red eyes captive, saw traces of fear there behind the Necromancer's mask, "Appearances can be deceiving, can't they? Or perhaps it's because you already were a monster. Already insane and vicious. We're not so different, Necromancer, as much as I hate you for it." For making me like you. For creating the technology that made Hod's destruction not just possible but a necessity. For being the reason Van was scored to be a monster and treated like one by his family, just like Jade. He wasn't smiling now so much as he was baring his teeth: he wanted to kill Jade so very much, but, "Killing you won't avenge Hod. It's not enough." Jade wasn't the only one responsible, this world was. And revenge wouldn't set things right, only restoring Hod could undo what Van had done. What their machine had used him to do.

A breath, and Van's own pleasant mask was back in place. "Tear," he said, the nickname that had originally been his pet name for his little sister. Then he hesitated before calling the others, "Guy and Princess Natalia." Instead of 'my lord,' and 'Meryl.' "I'm granting the three of you your parole until we reach Yulia City." It wasn't as though they could escape, other than by diving into the miasma. "Colonel Curtiss," Dr. Balfour. Necromancer. "I suggest you stay in there for your own safety. Many of my men know the truth of what happened to Hod, and you are currently in no condition to defend yourself." Containing a fonist so they could be executed was the reason fon slot seals had been invented. "However, if you want to attend the funeral, I will personally see to it that you are unharmed."

'Can't you control your troops,' Guy would have demanded, but he knew what people could do in moments of hatred and passion. And, "Wait, funeral?"

"Yes." They followed Van's gaze to where Asch and Luke lay like a pair of mirrors. Reflecting images into infinity? Van certainly hoped not. How could he kill Lorelei and free humanity from the lure of the Score if it truly was not an aberration created by the planet storm but a true aspect of part of the universe (or all of it…)? No, three isofons were more than enough, as much as he pitied Asch despite his betrayal.

Yet they were no longer perfect images of each other. The differences in their hair, clothing and builds were no longer minor as the sleeve of Asch's shirt bulged, a line of primary feathers the rich crimson of his hair forcing their way through the fabric. Van wondered what power those feathers might hold, but he certainly wasn't going to suggest to Largo's daughter that she pluck her fiancé. If she did use them for fletching, he was certain who she'd be aiming those arrows at. She was her father's daughter, after all. So, "It's almost time," he said quietly. It galled him that he'd checked the Score for this, allowed himself to make use of it. It was so easy to slide from that to relying on it. Of course, he already was. Still, he'd wanted to give Asch this.

The destroyer of Akzeriuth, as Van was the destroyer of Hod. At least one of them could die in peace, surrounded by family and loved, instead of living on as a criminal, forced to commit worse crimes.

Envy. He envied Asch so very much. That was why he hadn't tried to reclaim him before this. He'd meant to keep Asch by his side, to give the boy some consolation. To ensure he wouldn't hate himself for what the Score required. No, with his death Asch would have struck the first blow for humanity's freedom.

"No," Natalia whispered, looking at Van, not her love's mutating body. Even though this would truly be Luke's funeral, not Asch's. Unless Lorelei chose to act, in which case… Well, he'd see when the other awakened. _If _they awakened before the end of this world.

Without Ion it would take more time, but he wasn't the only one with a backup copy. Killing Mohs personally did have some appeal, even though the man had come into power long after Hod. After the true Ion had slaughtered all the high-ranking members of the Order, in fact, except for Teodoro. Losing Ion, having to leave his sister behind and knowing that now she would be taught to hate him & now having Gailardia turn from him as well: he would have no reason to regret his death. Nothing to live for but Eldrant's survival and humanity's rebirth.

Just as his blessed ancestress had planned, so long ago.

* * *

><p><em>Asch was the one that destroyed Akzeriuth here, not Luke. So his personal Score is still on track, and will be until he takes over Luke and is thus alive after the Score says he's dead and (theoretically) doesn't have any more 'orders' for him. Luke taking Asch's place was Van's original plan, being the one to destroy Akzeriuth and die, but Van blames himself for Hod, not the machine, so he knows Asch would still feel responsible for his own destiny (the Score's insidious like that). <em>

_A lot of his reaction to Luke later is puzzlement. Even though he knows replicas have free will, he just really doesn't have a clue why Luke is alive. Free will means that if Luke deviated from the Score, it's because he _wanted _to, and Van can't see why someone in a position so similar to Van's (except without a little sister to look after, survivors to hunt for and a plan to make it right) would want to live. And what Luke says to him later? If Luke doesn't have a reason to live, they why did he bother to? And not being able to live without a reason, to live just for the sake of living, is so like the Score's cattle who think they need a plan and a destiny, that this is more important than what _they _want. Not to mention how suicidal do you have to be to think of it as the obvious thing to do, given reason and opportunity? Van's looking forward to it. Know how depressed people will often cheer up after they've decided to do it and the end of their suffering is in sight?_

_Watching Van and Luke's interactions really shows how screwed-up a value system Van got from being raised by 'virtuous' people who were raising him to be a mass murderer & didn't have the decency to feel guilty for this. Van's defying that value system, but it still shaped his view of the world. If how Van treats Luke is how his parents treated him? Ow. Especially with Asch/Tear being the one that mattered, while the other is to be used, thrown away and generally treated like dirt._


	19. Chapter 19

_Sorry for the delay: I came home to two months' worth of chores, in addition to paperwork for my disabilities, and two awesome video games also happened. I make no excuses. However, the vacation from regular updates is over._

_Remember Van's final-final boss form? Take a look: he had feathers growing on one of his arms, same color as his hair. _

_The words clamor and calamity are probably unrelated despite both coming from Latin: they're false cognates. However, Luke and Luce are also false cognates: Luke descends from a name that meant 'from the region of Lucania' and has nothing to do with light. However, if the name Luke means light in Ancient Ispanian, clamor and calamity can also be related._

* * *

><p>"It's his hyperresonance, it has to be," Guy explained to the others, face pale. "That's what it does, reshape matter."<p>

"Destroy the city and himself…" Natalia bit her lip.

"The power will turn to calamity. But interpreting the Score, especially the Planet Score, isn't always that simple," Van told them. "I trust you all know what the word calamity means?"

Something that made the people cry out: a disaster. A terrible thing that produced _sound_.

This was why Van had to be here now, not to stand watch over the deathbed of, at best, the faulty replica that had nearly destroyed Asch's sanity and caused Asch to leave him.

"Hyperresonance is part of the true power of Lorelei. Using that power to its full potential is as dangerous to a human as using the seventh fonon is to someone who hasn't been adapting to bear the presence of that power from the moment of their birth. When I destroyed Hod, that power was controlled by a machine. I didn't have control of it and never lost control. Right now, his desire to survive is letting that power reshape his body as it wishes, but the Score dictates his death. If he was a replica, he would simply have dissolved painlessly." If Van had been able to use Luke as planned. Sync had tried several times while the replica was knocked out, but it seemed to be impossible to make a curse slot stick to him. "This power will destroy him, and if he survives… he has already become a calamity." Or was that becoming, Van wondered, as Asch arched his back, grumbling in his sleep, trying to rub his shoulder against the bed's padding.

Stupid aching muscles. Served him right for trying to set a good example for Luke by doing the entire practice with him. Stupid court, leaving him barely any time for training. His nose twitched: scent, the most primal sense of all, told his hindbrain that Natalia was nearby. Memory told him that if he wiggled around enough to wake her up and looked pained, she might rub his shoulders, calling healing magic into her hands.

Everyone should have a Natalia, he thought drowsily, except not because she was _his all his and he'd kill anyone who tried to take him away from her again_!

He arched his back, hoping that the stretch might get some of the kinks out or get him some attention and pushed at the stupid cloth he'd somehow managed to get wrapped up in.

His sleeves, already bulging around the feathers they contained, tore apart, along with the back of his shirt. Asch might be fon slot sealed, but these were noble garb, not sturdy traveling clothes.

Now Asch's body sagged back down, tired. The ache wasn't going away, but it wasn't enough to keep him even halfway-conscious anymore, not when he felt so tired…

"What the…" Guy breathed.

"That's… In Yulia's journals!" Tear's hands covered her mouth as she stared, shocked.

"He's, he's becoming a monster!" Would he lose his mind? Before taking over Luke's? Natalia was going to lose both of them!

Brilliant wings the color of a dying sun lay over the bed. They'd grown out of Asch's arms, splitting from them until they only remained joined at the shoulder blade. Two of them. One feathered like a bird's, like Rem's, and the other covered in short, velvet-soft fur. Natalia had always thought a bat's wings were hard, cracked, bald leather. That Shadow's wings were cold and hard. The feathered wing rose up over his shoulder, but the other had attached itself to the base of his left shoulder blade.

If Luke was awake his eyes would have turned to Jade's, dark with a mixture of desperation and hope against hope. Jade knew everything, right? So Jade would know how to fix this, please? He had to!

Not because this was his fault, no. Luke didn't think that way. Because Luke trusted Jade, despite everything he'd had to do to get the two of them functional. Because Jade had helped back then, and surely he'd try to help now?

Very soon either Asch's distorted body would be unable to sustain life or he'd go berserk, just like Professor Nebilim had. Professor Nebilim, Jade's first love. The one for whom he'd tried to become a seventh fonist. The one he'd tried to resurrect with the only arte he _could _cast that had a chance, any chance at all.

Creating that mad replica that had ravaged Malkuth's forces. The mad replica with wings so like Asch's. He could see her in his mind's eye even now.

He didn't take a step back as Asch's eyes opened, hard green replaced by Jade's own blood-red. Instead, with the clinical detachment he'd possessed since the cradle, he acted, flinging the contents of the bedside mug over Luke.

If he'd been unsealed, he would have used splash, but this would have to do. He hoped.

Luke woke with a start as Asch screeched and tackled Van, the strength in that still-short (not to mention sealed) body enough to propel them through the door with a crash that must have alerted every guard on the ship.

"Stop them before he gets to the deck!" they heard Legretta order, her voice cutting through the crashes, sounds of surprise and battle cries that echoed off the bulkheads of the metal landship.

"Asch!" Luke ran for the wreckage of the door, only to be stopped by the swords of two of Van's soldiers, too disciplined to leave their post even when their leader was under attack. At first he tried a pleading expression, than a reasonable one, but then he started forward anyway, even knowing that they really would attack.

That was the plan. "Asch! They're hurting me!"

Jade winced: perhaps Luke's ability to be so _loud_ wasn't Lorelei-related at all, if he could manage it even when sealed.

A roar that mingled a lion's with a hawk's screech resounded through the ship, and Jade wasn't the only one to cover his ears. A blood-red and blood-drenched blur slammed into the two guards, knocking them into the ground and stamping on their helmets, Asch's inhuman strength twisting the metal under his feet, crushing their helmets and their skulls.

"Asch?" Natalia asked, voice both affectionate and careful as Asch mantled his wings over Luke, who had been knocked to the ground by the guards.

"It's okay, Asch," Luke said, as though talking to a guard dog. He sat up and reached up carefully to touch the lower of Asch's two wings, the furry one. After feeling it for a moment, he started scratching at it.

Asch let out a pleased rumble, the wing pushing down and into Luke's hand.

"Come on, alright, back on the bed, okay?" Luke coaxed Asch. "Natalia, mind getting the other wing?"

"That's a wonderful idea, Luke." An archer knew what wings were supposed to look like, and even if Asch's feathers hadn't been covered in so much blood, they were all disarranged. Surely preening them would help him calm down and wake up, Natalia hoped.

She took Asch by the hand, moving carefully so she wouldn't startle him, and climbed up on the bed. With Luke's help, the two of them got him lying down with his head on Natalia's lap as she looked around. Drat, her feather oil was in her quiver, and they'd taken that.

"It's kind of sad that we're so good at this, huh?" Guy mused before getting another mug of water and sitting down on the bed. "Well, we'd better get that off this wing before it dries." 'That' being all the blood. "I bet that'd be itchy as anything." He poured some of the water over the bat wing and soon enough both Guy and Luke's hands were streaked with red like Luke's watercolor paints.

"Thank you so much, Guy," Asch's fiancée said, wanting him to know that he really was appreciated.

"No problem, princess. Hold out your hands." He poured a little of the water into them.

"How… domestic." It bothered Jade that this was working, really it did. Surely Nebilim couldn't have been pacified with a little care? No, not when it was Asch's connection to the three of them that was really what calmed him, while Nebilim had tried to kill both her prize students.

Jade certainly hadn't missed the resemblance. Those wings still haunted the nightmares only Peony knew he had.

Van finally came back into the room – Pity, Jade had hoped that the delay might indicate that Van was 'the late Vandesdelca Musto Fende' instead of simply late – proceeded by two guards. Too more came in behind him, one to drag away the bodies of the guards Asch had just killed for revival and another to hand Van his left arm. With Van holding it in place, all it took was a quick cast of First Aid.

Sometimes, the seventh fonon really was frustrating.

Asch bared his teeth when he saw Van, but then almost pointedly closed his eyes. He could kill him later.

The question of what was going to happen now loomed. Jade wondered if this was a sign Asch was beginning to decay, due to the resemblance to Jade's imperfect replica. Would Natalia still be returned to Kimlasca? Then there was the matter of the war, and Van's future plans.

Thoughts were interrupted and hands stilled when a tremendous crash echoed throughout the ship. The force of it pressed the landship down into the water, making it start to bob up and down as everyone who was on their feet fought for balance.

Van cursed, which Tear had never heard him do in her entire life, and headed back out of the room. None of them asked, "What's going on?" because that made it clear no one knew. Van would know if anyone did.

Except perhaps Jade, who put his head in his hands.

"Jade?" Luke asked.

"I hope I'm wrong. Please let me be wrong."

"Oh Jaaaade," a happy voice called.

"Is it too late to jump into the miasma or run myself through as penance for all those who died because of my invention?" Jade wondered aloud.

Blue-clad troops led by a white-haired General Jade recognized as Frings ran past the door, the general remaining behind. "He's here, your-Ma'am-your imperial majesty!"

"Too late." Jade hung his head like a man going to his execution.

"Damn right it is," Nephry agreed, hands on her hips.


	20. Chapter 20

_And finally! I thought I would have these fics done before the end of last year, and now it's almost halfway through this one… Ah well._

_At least I'm still holding to my promise to never leave a fic unfinished. Hopefully, I'll be moving on to my Ar Tonelico fic next because it's almost done._

_You know, an Ar Tonelico/Tales of the Abyss crossover would be interesting. Magic music, after all. Tear (and Van), likely Ion and Lukeling too would push Lyner's reyvateil buttons (reyvateil abuse, in chibi!Van's case). Also, Lyner's (warrior) therapist skills are actually a gameplay mechanic via the cosmospheres that help people get more powerful hymns, and heaven knows the ToA people need therapy. _

_Also, Lyner and Peony's costume-making skills. I'm pretty sure you can equip Ayatane with the Sailor Bunny Dress, although Ayatane is the type to just be amused by how people react to this. _

* * *

><p>"Hey, there you are, guys!" Anise came in riding Tokunaga. "Come on, Colonel, it took you this long to break out? You're slipping."<p>

Arietta followed her a second later, riding a bounding young adult liger queen along with Ion, who happily waved hello to Luke, and a trussed-up Sync. "We need to do something about all this miasma, I promised Baby Ion a uniceros ride and it's making them sick. I had to tell all of them to leave since they couldn't help evacuate Akzeriuth." Not when they kept attacking the sick people they were supposed to carry.

"Mmm mm MM!" Sync demanded, or tried to, since the sheets he'd been rolled up in and then tied muffled his voice.

Arietta put her hands on her hips, which she could do because she'd given her stuffed animal to Baby Ion. "Absolutely not. Ion's babies are my babies too, and Van let you get sick!" From opening Daathic Seals. "I let you go with him because you wanted to and I _trusted _Van and I was busy tracking down the poor little Ion Mohs kidnapped, but I _am_ your mommy, Baby Sync, and mommies don't let their babies get hurt!"

"Move out of the way!" an annoyed (and annoying) voice said behind her. Arietta obligingly moved her Lyger aside, although since there was only so much space in the room Anise had to dismiss her Tokunaga and climb up with Arietta. "Jaaade," Dist said happily, floating towards Jade. Wearing a dress.

Nephry sighed, pushed the top of Saphir's chair forward so that it tilted and he slid out of it, then started dragging it out of the room behind her. He looked like an old maiden aunt in a dress like that while sitting in a chair like that. "Right now, this chair should be Vandesdelca Musto Fende's only way off this barge," she informed Dist before he could protest. "Do you want him ruining your moment?" Since the answer was clearly no, she started hauling it out of the room behind her. "Come, Frings."

"Yes, your Imperial Majesty." As the general scurried after her, they resembled Nephry's husband and Jade himself, although Jade was never so obvious about it.

"Barge?" Jade wondered why the insult to his Tartarus was what he chose to object to. Yes, it was a very old model, but he'd made several improvements despite his dislike of fontech, or rather what was associated with fontech.

"Yes, she shouldn't insult dear Jade's fontech masterpiece. I knew you appreciated my discipline!" Saphir flew into Jade's arms (over) dramatically. "I've already named our first two creations! We'll call them Barrelow and Anise."

"Aww," Anise said, touched. Dist was embarrassing, but he definitely was a softie. "Fontech-Anise will have all the best toys and weapons, right?"

"Of course!"

Jade sighed. Barrelow was obviously out of the question, but, "Twins. Anise and Peony. Who will also be a girl. Or at least look like one." Since this was fontech dolls they were discussing, after all. "Just like the real one."

Dist scowled.

"I get to be fontech Anise's sentiencemother!" Anise declared.

"And the boy will be Nephrite," Jade went on, ignoring Dist's objections like always. "So it's obvious whose fault this is." Jade refused to be held responsible if their creations were Dist-level insane, Jade-level monsters that took over the world, including the empire.

Ion frowned. "I was supposed to perform the ceremony right away, but Nephry isn't back yet, and she has to give Jade away."

"Whoa!" Anise exclaimed, clinging to Arietta as the Tartarus shook under their feet. The temperature here under the Outer Lands was normally disturbingly warm, like that of an inflamed, infected wound, like they were surrounded by the world's diseased flesh as it struggled in vain for survival. But the temperature suddenly dropped enough that Jade, who never showed his discomfort, and Dist, who let it make him cranky, were comfortable.

"I'm sure it won't be long at this point, one way or another," Jade said with a sigh as the battle continued to rock the boat and Luke and Natalia moved closer to Asch, who now felt pleasantly toasty.

"Do you really think she can win? This is Van we're talking about," Dist asked worriedly. Nephry was formidable, but she wasn't a genius like him, much less dear Jade.

"This is also _my little sister_ we are talking about. I wouldn't have left her behind if I wasn't sure she could take care of herself." The hellish training Jade had inflicted on her without bothering to explain the reason for the torment (wasn't it obvious?) was another reason Nephry had less-than-pleasant memories of her big brother. "All of you, try to avoid touching metal." Insofar as that was possible aboard the Tartarus.

Oh, Luke knew this one! "Because our tongues will stick to it?" he asked excitedly. He really wanted to see that!

"No, because metal conducts electricity and if she uses that other arte, I don't know if the charge will be able to earth itself through the miasma." Not when he didn't know its fonon composition. Could it dissolve the third fonon, when the air here was still mostly breathable?

"_Get back here!" _they heard Nephry yell as Van ran past the door, then turned around and ran though it, towards his target.

Jade tried to look behind him. "Hiding behind me won't work. She won't hesitate to strike through me to get to you."

"You're fon slot sealed, and I'm not hiding behind you, I'm taking you hostage," Van forced out through gritted teeth.

"As I said, she won't hesitate to attack through me," Jade said as Nephry and a blue-skinned woman ran through the door, followed by a blue-uniformed Frings. "Let me guess: ten percent of the empire's annual military budget is still less than you saved by not letting Peony hold a grand state wedding?" he asked his sister.

Nephry raised her eyebrow. "Are you suggesting that I couldn't defeat this man without using a fon slot seal?"

"No, I'm suggesting that you wouldn't be able to capture him alive without one." That was what fon slot seals were for. "Not someone who obviously craves death. He should have moved faster than that," Jade said remarkably casually for someone with a sword to his throat. "Luke?"

"Is this really right? I mean…"

"Haven't we had this discussion?"

"What are you…" Van demanded, his sword drawing a single drop of blood from Jade's throat, only to stop when Luke slipped around to touch his cheek.

Stop and fall to the floor.

"With his fon slots sealed, Lorelei wasn't able to protect him." Jade did like it when a theory was proven correct.

"What did you do?" Guy asked, because this was his former friend.

Luke bit his lip and avoided his eyes.

"Both the curse slot Daathic Arte and replica programming are derived from the same principle. When memories make up so much of who we are, to control memory is to control people: that is the basis of the Score, after all." Jade grinned. Yes, he'd just arranged for something evil to happen to Van, who had already suffered because of Jade's inventions. Two wrongs didn't make a right, but then, was there such a thing as right in this world? "Now there's just the question of who looks after him," Jade said as the body on the floor began to shrink. "I nominate Guy."

"I'll fight you for him," Arietta declared, catching on amazingly quickly. If it weren't for Van, she would never have met her Ion.

Oh dear, Luke realized, looking through the stolen memories. "Uh, guys? We'd better get to St. Binah. Fast."

_He's so cute_, Tear thought, blushing as she looked at her now-little brother.

Asch growled because no one was paying attention to him and the wing-scritchies had stopped.

"Oh, I'm sorry dear," Natalia said, giving him a peck on the cheek and getting back to work, which drew a placated rumble from him. "This reminds me of when I thought Luke was you, remember? How I promised that I'd protect you and wait for you to be yourself again no matter what? I do hope it is really you this time, however. If Lorelei is presuming on our relationship, I will be very put out." Ah, in-laws.

Asch wasn't the only one annoyed no one was paying attention to him. "Peony wanted to send you another costume, but I want our ceremony to be just like this," Saphir said, snuggling Jade. "There's something just so _dashing _about a man in uniform."

Frings frowned. Like this, he could actually see the family resemblance. Not between Dist and Colonel Curtiss, but between Saphir and Nephry. The haircut, for one thing, although it was hard to imagine the Empress in a dress like that. It was a little… Alright, it was very disturbing.

It wasn't as though he had anything against gay people: he could have sworn the Emperor was one and he was the best Emperor in the history of the Empire, most likely. Not to mention that if Nephry was right, Frings might not have any straight friends. The thing was that although he did agree that the Score was a bad thing now, since it had condemned all those innocent people in Akzeriuth and separated the Emperor from his love, Frings had been dreaming of his destined romance since he was a child. But what if it wasn't a romance? What if she found him completely unattractive or he spent the entire time pining after the Emperor, or worse, Jade? The Emperor could have concubines, while it was already obvious that Dist was the crazy jealous type.

Frings knew he should care more about the fate of the Empire than his own fairytale ending, and yet… Not to mention what could he possibly have been thinking, marrying an enemy when the people of the Empire were being slaughtered in the Scored future? Was he a war prize, dragged to the altar against his will?

Well, he thought, at least that meant there had to be some attraction on her part. He just hoped it wasn't attraction to the idea of taking advantage of a defeated enemy, because he really couldn't approve of that sort of thing. Perhaps she would have done it to save his life, keep him from being killed with the other prisoners?

Finding out the truth about the score turned his promised happy ending into a nightmare. No wonder the Scorers only told people the happy things, hid the true reality.

This wasn't a true happy ending, not when there was still a war to stop and what Prince Luke said indicated that Van's plan was still in motion. But better not to have a happy ending than to have an _ending_. Of everyone and everything.

He was sure that Princess Natalia would rather her fiancé stay like this forever than die and be lost to her.

Well, Frings thought, he'd joined the army to fight, hadn't he? In this uncertain future, he would fight to protect the empire from its destiny. If they were truly to have choice, then couldn't he choose to fight for the happiness he wanted?

Like everyone else here.


End file.
